Mortal Hunger of Earth
by Jacquera
Summary: Crossover. Neiva, President Snow's granddaughter enters the 76th Hunger Games along with Mortal Engines' Fishcake, from a Traction City, and Earth Children's Jonayla, from the Ice Age. They need to learn to rely and help each other to survive.
1. Chapter 1

Jonayla

My head hurts, so I slip out of the Zelendoni meeting that my mother insisted I attend, and skirt around the tent. Going past where my father tells once again how he met my mother, I hurry so he doesn't see me, and get me to come and listen, and head toward the lake.

The lake that I've longed to swim in since we arrived at the distant summer meeting.

The sun is high in the sky, meaning it is middle of the day and I don't have long until the meeting breaks up, and my absence is noticed. Soon they will break for a meal.

But I don't care. I don't want to be a Zelendoni, so I don't know why she, my mother, the First, insists on me going to the meetings.

She probably thinks I will change my mind, but I won't. I don't want to do what she wants me to do.

And neither do I want to be a flint knapper like my father.

I must admit, I find the little bits of flint around our shelter in the Nine Cave annoying.

And cannot imagine I would ever, and I mean ever, want to do that once I'm fully grown.

Though I nearly am. My mother was by my age.

She had a child when she was younger than me, and sometimes I see her looking at me as if she is wondering if I will ever become a woman.

I am twelve summers old and in no hurry to grow up. Not if it means I will have to become a Zelendoni, or have to choose a trade.

The thing is, I don't know what I want to do. Sometimes at night, I go outside and stare up at the lights in the dark sky, and think about what they are. I wonder if they are really the Hearths of those already gone, like the Hearth of my grandmother who I barely remember.

But sometimes I wonder if those pinpricks of light are actually other worlds, like ours, or different.

I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere totally different.

'Jonayla.'

I sigh when I hear my name, though I know it is not my mtoehr, because she would be shouting at me if she knew where I was.

I turn.

'What do you want Jaradal?' I hiss.

'I just wanted…' He sighs. 'Are you going to the lake?'

'I was.'

'Can I come too?'

'No.'

He frowns. 'Why not?'

'I just…'

Why don't I want him to come? I like him, he's the son of my father's brother after all, and I have grown up with him, but I don't know, I just feel that I want to be alone. It feels almost as if something wants me to be alone. Something is calling to me.

Yes, something is definitely calling to me.

And it isn't calling to him.

'I'm not going to go to the lake,' I say quickly. 'I was just taking a walk, and now I'm going back to the Zelendoni tent, where my mother will be waiting for me. I really do need to go. You could go to the lake though. I'm sure there are others there.'

'There probably are,' he says with what sounds like a disappointed voice. 'But they won't be you.'

I shrug.

'I will walk you back to the Zelendonii tent if you want.'

I shake my head. 'I can find my own way.' And before he can argue, or try to come with me, I push past him, and run toward the nearby forest.

And I'm a fast runner so easily leave him behind.

'Jonayla' he shouts.

'See you later.'

I reach the trees, and turn around to see him heading toward the lake. So it seems like I'm not going to go there today after all.

So where should I go?

I walk through the trees, edging around them until I come to the cliff.

'I wonder if there are any caves around here?'

I've never found a cave. My mother has, in fact, she's found quite a few, but me, no, I've never found any. Though it doesn't help that all the caves near my home have already been found by my mother.

But she has never been here before.

So she hasn't found any caves around here.

'I wonder,' I say to myself, as I stare up at the cliff wall.

And see a dark shape that can only be a cave.

With no way up to it, unless I climb the sheer cliff wall.

So I start to climb.

Putting my hands on it, I search for a crevice to pull myself up with, and others so I can place my feet in them.

And very slowly, pretty much like a spider on a cave wall, I climb up the cliff to the dark shape far above.

Its tiring climbing, but I don't rest when I pull myself onto a jutting out stone in front of what is definitely a cave.

No, I stand up, and walk carefully into the cave.

I leave all my world behind, in the bright sunlight, and walk into what should be a dark space, if it wasn't for the strange light coming from the back of the cave.

That looks like a waterfall of light.

And feels a bit like water too, well until it pulls me in.


	2. Chapter 2

Fishcake

Me names Fishcake, and I'm gonna take ya on a ride wiv me. I'm a stowaway this 'ere traction city of Preston, hidden deep within its gut, near its engines, they don't know I'm 'ere.

But when I go up to the top, walk around on the top tier, where all the people 'ave their meetin's, I 'ear about where this city of Preston is goin'. We're goin' to a place where there's riches, and loot, and loads of stuff. Anchorage-in-Vineland, that's the place. It's on a little island in the Dead Continent.

The place where everyone thought no one could live, not after the Sixty Minute War, but that's not true.

Is it?

I know its not, coz I've been there. I've seen it, and now I'm goin' back, but not with the Lost Boys like last time, this time I'm not following orders and looking for just one thing, no this time, I'm just tagging along for the ride and goin' to make meself rich.

So when I get back to the Great Hunting Ground of Europe, they won't treat me like scum anymore, they'll think I'm royaty.

And that's coz Anchorage-in-Vineland, its supposed to be well rich.

Didn't see any riches when I was there, only a few people and a stupid girl, Wren was 'er name, but last I 'eard, she were lookin' for her parents.

Ha. She don't know they're dead.

I do though. I saw them die.

I saw her dad's 'eart give out, and her mum, that ugly scar face woman, she laid down next to him, and died too.

Anyway, we've been travelling in this traction city for months, its huge wheels rolling over land, and its inflatables floating us across the sea.

We'll soon be there.

That static towns gonna get a shock when they see us rollin' toward them.


	3. Chapter 3

Neiva

'Neiva,' my mother shouts, and I know its time.

I sit up, and pull the blankets off my legs, and look out of the window where the curtains don't stop the bright sunlight shining through.

It is such a beautiful day.

And good day to die?

I hope not.

I stand up, and walk to the window, move the curtains below and look out.

See the rebel soldiers in the square below.

Oh but I'm not supposed to call them rebels, not now, not now they are in charge. Not now that my grandfather is dead.

He used to be the leader of the Capitol.

He used to be in charge.

I remember as a young child sitting on his knee and hearing all about the games that ran every year. About how the children of the districts got the honour to fight in them.

I loved hearing the stories, just like I loved him, but when I was older, and able to watch the games myself, well, I could tell they were wrong.

I even told him once, and he got so angry. He hit me, and shouted it was the only way to keep the districts under control.

And then he picked up my favourite doll, one he had given me for my second birthday, and threw it out of the window.

He told me that without the games, the people in the districts wouldn't work for the ~Capitol, so there would be no more things like dolls, or other luxuries.

And when I started to cry, he got down on one knee in front of me, and gathered me in his arms, and said that I was to think of the games as a marvellous adventure.

Nothing else.

So that's what I did. With my doll safely restoried to my arms, after my mother had had it cleaned, I sat and watched the games, and it was just entertainment to me.

I didn't allow myself to believe that anyone was dying in them.

It was all make believe.

But now?

I sigh as my mother comes into the room carrying a snow white dress in her arms.

'Is it time already?' I ask.

She nods.

And so with a gulp, I get dressed, and my mother plaits my hair into two fat braids.

My name is Neiva, and I am going to the reapings, which for the first time in the history of the games only has Capitol children, and maybe I will be one of those who are chosen.

And then the pretence of the games, and all my Grandfather's ideas, will count as nothing.

Because I will die.

I am only twelve years old.


	4. Chapter 4

Jonayla 

It is such a strange feeling, I am enveloped with white light, that feels like water, but cannot be, as I can breathe within it. It feels just like I am swimming though, as if I am floating on the top of a lake, or even a river.

Yes, a river, because I can feel a pull, as if there is a tide that is pulling me somewhere.

But where?

And why do I not feel scared?

Why do I feel at peace with all around me when all that is around me is what looks like rippling water?

Am I dead?

Is that the truth? I am dead, and this is the Mother's Land? I am on my way to meet Her?

I must be.

I must be dead.

I have only lived a short life, and now it is over, and I have entered the afterlife.

I am a spirit.

But I feel warm. Would a spirit feel warm?

Would a spirit even be able to think?

What is going on?

And just as I was suddenly pulled in, I am spat out.

And I scrape my knees on a rock as I fall.

Pain then. I cannot be dead if I can feel pain. So that means…

What does it mean?

I look around. I am on a sphere of rock, almost the same shape as the sun that shines so brightly in the sky.

In my sky.

I look up. There it is, as it should be but…

There is something flying past it, a large bird, that makes a sound like thunder, or an earthquake.

And something flies out of it toward me. A long rope? It lands right next to me, and suddenly I am pulled to it, attached to it somehow, as if it is a part of me.

And the rope pulls me up.


	5. Chapter 5

Fishcake

Since everyone got ta know that the dead continent won't dead, well lots of traction towns and cities wanted to go there. But not all of 'em could coz they didn't have floats ta get over tha' sea. But some places did, and they've been scavengin' for old tech and any static towns since.

Not that I know if they've found any static towns, but I've 'eard rumours tha' there's more than tha' Anchorage-in-Vineland on the dead continent.

But tha' don't worry me at the moment. Nothin' worries me, not when I'm on top tier, the wind blowin' through me hair, and there's a little traction town tryin' ta get away.

Don't think its gonna get away though.

Preston is faster tha' it.

And bigger too.

'It will be a tasty treat to wet our appetite for Anchorage,' I 'ear a man say nearby me.

I don't look at him though, don't look coz I don't want him ta look at me. He might be able to work out that I'm a stowaway.

And I don't wan' tha.'

Coz I might be put in the gut then. Made to stoke the boilers or shovel the…

'We're going to catch it,' a woman shrieks. 'Look, there's smoke coming out of its chimneys but its going slower and slower.'

'I think they've run out of fuel,' the man laughs. 'I bet they're burning the furniture right now.

The town is moving slowly, and there is a cloud of black smoke loomin' over it.

I lean closer.

'I think its on fire,' the woman says. 'Oh this is so much fun.'

'We're close now, so close that no one will notice a boy movin' within them, emptyin' their pockets. If I'm lucky, I should be able to get enough money to buy me dinner from Pete's Eats, though I'm not goin' to be buyin' that London Mint Tea. It tastes horrible.

I slip me hand in one fellow's pocket and pull out his wallet. Put it in me own pocket quickly and then move away.

A couple more times, and I'm waitin' in the queue at Pete's Eats, waitin' ta be served.

'Have they caught it yet?' the boy behind the counter asks, leaning as if he's trying to look out of the greasy windows.

I shrug and take me tray of pink meat burger in a seaweed roll, and me mouldshake. Sitting down at a table, I start to eat, sniffing at me mouldshake to see what flavour it is.

Strawberry mould, me favourite.

'Have I seen you before?' the boy asks, but I tuck me head down, concentrating on me burger.

He doesn't ask again and at tha' moment, someone runs into the café and shouts that they've caught the town.

'It's Cleobury,' he says. 'Cleobury Mortimer. Town's supposed to be rich.' He rubs his hand. 'I guess that's cause for a celebration,' he says. 'I'll have some fried flies.'

I slip out as he's getting' his bugs to eat. Never wanted to eat them meself. Wasn't brought up when I was a Lost Boy in Grimsby. We lived on mostly fish and seaweed then. But never ever flies.

Yuck.

I start to head down to the gut, not just coz that's where I've set up me bed, but also because I'll be able to see Cleobury Mortimer being taken apart for its parts. Might even find something meself.

There's loads of engineers though, more than usual, so I've got ta be careful. Don't want them seein' me do I?

I open the shutter on a pipe, and climb inside, closing it carefully and start to crawl along it. This is the way I get to the top tier and back down to the gut all the time, so I know me way.

Comin' to the end of the tunnel, I lower meself into a hole, that leads down, clamberin' down a ladder.

As I get lower, the air gets hotter, but that's the gut for ya, it is hot down there.

Or here.

I quietly open the shutter in the pipe that leads to the gut and climb out. Hurry behind the pipe and peak out.

Engineers are runnin' everywhere and I can hear the crucning and wailing of metal bein' bitten by metal teeth as Cleobury is shredded.

I see a line of men and women, some children too, all bein' led toward the other side of the gut. Where they will become slaves.

Made to work for Preston.

Some of them have burns on their hands, or clothes.

All of them look dirty.

A little boy, younger than me stumbles, and I have to stop meself from goin' ta help him. An engineer grabs him by his clothes, pickin' and throwin' him back into the line.

The boy has tears streaking his dirty face with white lines.

He's cryin' and so he should be. I've seen what they do ta slaves. What they make them do.

An engineer pushes a wheelbarrow past where I'm hid, and something rolls off it and toward me.

Thankfully he doesn't notice.

I stare at it. It's a shiny seedie. I could get a nice price for it.

I wait until there's no one nearby and then crawl toward it, snatch it up, and get back behind me pipe.

They work all night, and eventually I get fed up watchin' 'em. When I get the chance, I head to where me bed is, grateful with all the people in the gut tonight, that it's well hidden.

I fall asleep with the seedie in me hand and dream of the music that it would have once held.


	6. Chapter 6

Neiva

'There she is, the snow princess,' I hear someone say as I walk pass. 'Bet old Snow never thought his precious granddaughter would be made to enter the games.'

I look around at the speaker. An old woman.

'Hush,' a younger one says. 'She's just a child. And she might not be chosen.'

'Of course she'll get chosen.' She glares at me. 'You know you are going to get chosen don't you girl. They aren't going to let President Snow's granddaughter get away.'

I turn away and carry on walking.

'And my Iris was a girl, when she was picked to go into the game. Same age as her ladyship, but that didn't stop her from dying did it?'

A tear trickles down my face as I continue walking.

'Neiva,' someone else shouts. 'Neiva. She's going to be neither boy or girl when she's been killed in the arena.'

The crowd gets thicker as I walk with my mother, and am join by other Capitol children. But they aren't getting the comments like I am. But that is to be expected.

We stop in front of a stage, huddle together. My best friend from school, Karis, she grabs my hand and squeezes it.

I look around at her pale face. And smile.

'It will be okay,' she says. 'There are loads of us. They only want twenty four, we will be okay. They will probably pick the older ones to make for a better show.'

I nod, but only to comfort her. She might not be picked, I hope she isn't, but I know I will be.

The sun shines down on my head, making it feel warm, but inside I'm cold.

How am I going to survive in the games?

Can I climb a tree like Rue?

Or fire an arrow like Katniss?

Maybe I could learn to camouflage myself so no one can find me like Peeta.

Or maybe the only thing I will learn in the games is how to die.

I turn toward the stage where a young woman, with bright pink curly hair, is standing.

'It's Effie Trinket,' Karis says next to me. 'They're going to get Effie Trinket to pull out the names. My mum used to babysit her when she was a baby.'

'Yeah, but she's with the rebels now.'

'Sssh, you can't call them that,' Karis looks around with a scared look on her face.

'What are they going to do to me,' I mutter. 'Send me into the games?'

Effie taps the microphone and I turn back as a thumping sound echoes around. 'She's here because she used to call for District Twelve,' I say. 'She was the only choice that the new government would choose.'

'Is Katniss…'

'I don't know.'

'Ladies and Gentlemen,' Effie starts with the effected voice of the Capitol. One that I've heard all my life, though my mother never spoke like that. Like a little girl. 'Boys and girls. We are here today for the final reaping for the games, taken this time from the children of the Capitol. This was the wish of President Coin before she was…' she sighs. 'Before she died. It was also the wish of the majority of the surviving tributes. So, not wanting to draw this out too long.'

She smiles and walks slowly toward one of the two large glass bowls that has been place at the front of the middle of the stage. Painted on their fronts are the number Twelve, one with pink paint and the other with blue.

They are the only ones left. The others have been smashed. I've heard these two are going to go into the new museum they are building that will be all about the games. Not that I will ever get to see them there.

Because I will be dead.

'Ladies first,' Effie says and sticks her hand in the bowl, fishing around the paper and picks one. She holds it up and all the rebels cheer. Then she opens it.

'Aliona Baker.'

An older girl moves forward, her family and friends weeping behind her.

'And Zartona Micheche.'

'No,' a woman screams, and tries to hold onto the little girl, my age, as the guards try to drag her away.

The girl just trembles.

'Maria Turner.'

I can't believe they haven't pulled my name out yet, but there are still nine names to go.

'Karis.'

I feel my friend's hand tighten.

'No,' she says.

'Appleby.'

I squeeze her hand. 'It's not you Karis,' I say. 'It's not you.'

But she's still shaking, so I put my arms around her. 'You will be okay,' I breath into her hair. 'You will be okay.'

'Bella Taylor.'

She looks at me. 'I might not be,' she squeaks, tears squeezing from her eyes.

'Yes you will.'

Janna Smart.'

I glance around at the girl from my year who had always bullied me because of who my grandfather was. I'm surprised that her names been chosen. I would have thought that her family would have sided with the rebels and so she would have been exempt.

But she still walks up the steps of the stage. A smile on her face.

'Nicola Cirtus.'

Five more to go.

'Talia Renae Pullet.'

Four to go.

'Salina Tores.'

'Only three more names,' I say to myself as much as to Karis. 'Only three more names.'

'Rachel Marriott.'

'Two now,' she says, looking at me hopefully.

I nod.

I watch as Effie pulls another name out. She frowns at the name and then smiles. Holds it up. 'Effina Tricket. For a moment then, I though…' She sticks her hand back into the bowl. 'One more name to go for the girls, will you be lucky enough for it to be yours?'

She holds up the final piece of paper, and I hold my breath.

She opens it up and then frowns. She glances at President Paylor who has come onto the stage as the names have been called.

Then she shrugs and calls out the name.

'Karis Rose.'

I stare at Effie. Shocked that she hasn't called my name, even more dazed though that the girl within my arms is crying because her name has just been called.

I told her she would be okay.

I told her…

'Why's the Snow girls name not been pulled,' I hear one of the crowd shout.

'We want President Snow's granddaughter in the arena' another screams.

'Neiva, Neiva, Neiva Snow. Send her in. Send her in.'

'Neiva,' the crowd chants, wanting my blood obviously.

'The names have all been called for the girls,' Effie says on the stage. 'Only twelve can be pulled and President Snow's granddaughter wasn't chosen.'

'Fix.'

I see President Baylor standing up and walking toward Effie. I feel the guards trying to pull Karis from my arms.

I glance over at the angry faces in the crowd.

And I know what I have to do. I have to follow the same path that Katniss did two years ago.'

'I volunteer,' I shout. I smack the nearest guard's face. 'Leave Karis alone,' I shout at him. 'I volunteer to take her place.'

'No,' Karis says.

I shake my head. 'This is how it has to be,' I say. 'Look at the crowd, if I don't go into the arena. If I'm not a part of the games, then what will happen to the rest of our people? What will happen to your family? There won't be any Capitol people left if I don't volunteer. They'll have all been murdered.'

I kiss her cheek, and then wiping the tears from my own, run toward the stage.

'I volunteer,' I shout. 'I volunteer in Karis Rose's place.' I reach the steps and look back at my friends.

They will be safe if I go in.

Hopefully.

A relieved Effie meets me at the top of the steps.

'We have a volunteer,' she says, reaching out and taking my hand. 'Neiva Snow, the granddaughter of President Snow has volunteered. She will go into the games.'

The crowd roars with approval, but all I see is my mother standing to one side, tears pouring down her crumpled face. And all I feel, apart from dread and cold fear in my stomach, is Effie's hand gently squeezing mine.

I look at her.

'You are very brave Neiva Snow,' she says. 'You are like Katniss.'


	7. Chapter 7

Jonayla

I try to get away as I am pulled toward the bird. The insanely massive bird. But the rope has attached itself to me, as if it is a part of my body, it clings to me.

And I am getting closer and closer.

But…

There is a hole. In the bird's stomach. A hole, and I can see a man.

Who is staring at me.

He grabs me as I get close enough, and pulls me in.

Shouts something at me, but I do not understand his words.

I shake my head.

He does something so the rope leaves my body, and then pushes me to a small raised platform, which seems to curve around at the back. He makes me sit on it.

It is soft.

Then he pulls something over me, something cold and hard, which traps my body into a frame.

He says something again but I do not understand what.

I shake my head. 'I do not understand you,' I say in the language of my people the Zelendonii.

He frowns. Stares down at me, and then turns and leaves.

I look around me. I have never thought that the stomach of a bird would look like this. 'What a strange place.'

'Hello,' a voice says, and I turn to see a blonde haired woman. She looks a bit like my mother.

'Hello,' I respond.

'Are you from District Six?'

'District Six?'

'You must be from District Six if you are speaking French, but then, you don't look like someone from District Six. They are usually thinner, what with them often being Morphling addicts.'

I shake my head. 'I am speaking Zelendonii.'

'Zelen… I've never heard that word before.'

'It is the name of my people.'

'Your people, District Six?'

'I do not know what District Six is.'

'But...' she sighs. 'Only District Six speak the language you're speaking but if you are not from there, where are you from?'

'The Zelendonii.'

'Yes, so you say, but these Zelendodo people, I've never heard of.'

'Zelendonii.'

'Yes, yes, Zeleedoonie.'

I am starting to get angry now, I do not know where I am, some really strange things have been happening to me, I am in the belly of a giant bird, and this woman is insulting the name of my people.

'It doesn't matter where you are from anyway,' she says. 'What does matter is why you were in the game arena. What were you doing there?'

I shrug.

The man comes back, and says something to the woman, who shakes her head, and then turns back to me.

'Let's start with who you are shall we. What's your name?'

'I am Jonayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelendonii, daughter of Ayla, the First Zelendoni, and Master of Animals, Hunter, Healer, and blessed of Doni, and Jondalar, Master Flint Knapper, blessed of Doni, the granddaughter of Marthona, the former leader of the Ninth Cave of the Zelendonii, and…'

'That's enough for now. So your name is Jonayla?'

I nod.

'Well hello Jonayla. My name is Bluebell, and this is Gale.'


	8. Chapter 8

Fishcake

The excitement from the capture of Cleobury fades quickly on the top tier of Preston, and as we trundle along the ground of the Dead Continent, it quickly turns ta fightin' when people get fed up.

Coz no Anchorage-in-Vineland appears.

I reckon we've missed it.

We've come onto the land too far North.

And missed it.

So where are we?

Coz where we are seems empty.

And rocky too.

I've been comin' up ta the top tier for days, and starin' out over the barren land, and seein' nothing.'

I'm there now. The wind in me 'air.

Lookin' out at the land. Just grass as far as the eye can see.

'That's him,' I 'ear.

I turn to look at a girl, pointin' a finger at me.

I frown.

And then realise, along with the words she says next, what's goin' on.

'That's him, that's the thief. That's the one that's been stealing everyone's wallets and money.'

Uh oh. I look for a way out. For escape. But the people just close around me.

A hand grabs me collar

And though I try to run. I can't. I'm caught.

'Let me go,' I shriek.

'You're coming with us laddie,' a man says, and I'm dragged along, the 'eels of me feet draggin' along the ground.

'Noooo.'

And then I 'ear another voice.

'Look. What's that? That line over there.'

The hand lets go of me collar, and people push past me. Run to the edge of the city, and look over the barriers.

I push me way through 'em to get to the barriers, and lean over. And look. Search the ground far below, and far away for what had been seen.

And I see nothin'.

'Over there,' the voice shouts. 'Look, comin' out between those two mountains, and twisting around the left one.'

I look again, and this time I see it. It looks almost like the tracks that Traction Cities make as they travel over the ground, but it is different, these tracks aren't churned up mud, they look like they are metal.

'I think,' one of the historians says excitedly. 'I think they're tracks.'

'Of course they're tracks,' scoffs another.

'No, no, you don't understand. They aren't any tracks, they are train tracks. They must be left over from before the Sixty Minute War.'

'They're old tech?'

The historian nods his head. 'We should stop and study them.'

'Or rip them up for parts. They'll be valuable,' the Mayor, who comes to stand next to me says.

But I'm staring at the tracks that disappear between the mountains, and at the gusts of smoke that seem to be over them as if a Traction City had recently passed by, leaving its fog behind.

Or a train.

I 'ear a shout of joy. Cheers of joy, of recognition.

Coz tracks, train tracks, and the fog caused by a train can only mean one thing.

If we ain't found Anchorage-in-Vineland, then these tracks might lead somewhere else.

Maybe somewhere good.

And if a train has just travelled along them, then that somewhere must still be populated.

A town.

Or a city.

Or even a whole lot of cities.

All waitin' for us.

Not knowing we are comin.' Not knowin' anythin' about Municipal Darwinism, not knowin' about dog eat dog, or actually city eat city.

We are on the Dead Continent, and we've come ta eat.


	9. Chapter 9

Neiva

We aren't put on a train to the Capitol like previous tributes, because we're already there. So once the boys' names have been called, and we are all on the stage, we are herded into the tribute building.

And that is where the fun begins.

We are put in twos, one girl and one boy, and assigned to a team of stylists and mentors.

The boy I'm put with is older than me, and far far bigger. He glares down at me, and growls when I try to introduce myself.

'I know who you are princess,' he says. 'And I know that it is because of your grandpa that I'm here now.' He spits on the polished marble floors. 'So don't expect me to help you, because I'm not going to. In fact, you can expect to find my hands squeezing the life out of that scrawny neck of yours once we're in the arena. I am going to be the winner.'

'Okay.' I step away from him.

But he follows me. Pushes me against the wall, holding me by my shoulders.

'I'd do it now if I could.'

I stare up at his reddened face and gulp.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out.

'Ah, I see you have met your fellow tribute,' a voice says.

I twist my head around to look at the speaker.

It's Effie.

'My job in the Games was to support the District Twelve tributes, but as my tributes won the last two games, and brought about the revolution, I have this time been assigned to the most famous of our tributes, which is you Neiva. And of course, our wrestling champ, Naylor Pillesh.'

She steps toward us, and puts a hand between me and Naylor, pushes him away.

'Each set of two tributes will represent a District, so you two are now District Twelve tributes.'

'District Twelve?' Naylor thumps his fist against the wall. 'I don't want to be any tribute for a coal hauling backward district. I should represent the strongest districts, be one of the careers, from District One.'

'Well, that is not going to happen.' Effie tilts her head to one side and stares at Naylor.

He glares back at her.

'Now, now children,' another voice says. 'We don't want to start fighting on the first day do we?'

'Haymitch Abernathy,' Effie squeals and runs to him, standing on her tiptoes to try to kiss his cheek.

He gently pushes her away.

And then he looks at me.

'So you are President Snow's granddaughter?'

I nod.

'Not very big are you?'

I blink.

'But no matter, sometimes it is the small ones that you have to watch out for. Now, if you will both follow me, and Effie of course, I will take you to the District Twelve quarters where you can get settled. We have much to discuss and far more to do.'

Effie starts to walk toward the stairs. I follow.

Naylor doesn't.

'Now Naylor,' Haymitch says.

'Make me.'

Haymitch smiles. 'Oh believe me, I would love to make you. But I don't tend to beat up the tributes, no matter how annoying they are. But if you want to stay here, then do so, but as the guards will be here soon, and they're not very fond of Capitol members, well, finding a lone one, even such a big one, they might want to have some fun. Do you think you can fight of say twenty of the guard?'

'I can…'

Haymitch arches an eyebrow.

'Fine,' Naylor growls, and starts to stomp toward the stairs. 'Move out of my way squirt,' he says to me, and pushes pass me, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

I follow.

Our quarters are large, but nothing special. Not compared to my home, or at least the home I used to live in before the revolution.

I am given a room which I am told used to be Katniss.' It contains a bed, a table and chair, and a wardrobe. A door leads to a shower room.

I shut the door so I am alone and then sit down on the bed. I put my hands on my lap, and try to stop them trembling.

Now I know how all the tributes I've seen over the years felt.

Scared.

Because I'm terrified.

But I blink away the tears that prickle my eyes, and try to breathe deeply.

And then I stand up, glance around the room, and then heading out the door, I go into the lounge where Haymitch is sat with a bottle of beer.

'Yes princess,' he looks up at me. 'Can I help you?'

'When do we start training?'

He laughs.

'When?'

'Anytime you want princess.' He stands up. 'I will take you to the training rooms now, if you want. You can show me how you are going to kill the other tributes, with your dolly.'

You see, I haven't mentioned her, but everywhere I go, I carry that doll that my grandfather threw out of the window. I find her presence comforting.

'Leave the child alone,' Effie says.

'The girl still plays with dolls,' Haymitch spits. 'She needs to toughen up.'

I smile. I carry my doll because my grandfather gave it to me. I carry it because I find her presence comforting. I carry it because with her there, no one can hurt me. I carry it because he told me too.

'My doll is special,' I say. 'She hides a secret.'

And I pull out a knife from her and throw it at him.


	10. Chapter 10

Jonayla

The bird they call a hovercraft lands, and Gale, the man, releases me from the cage that traps me to the sitting platform, and then taking my arm, leads me out of what I can only think is the bird's mouth, past its tongue that moves out of the way.

Outside is not any better though. It smells funny, makes me cough, and I am led down a tunnel to a large sharp walled cavern.

Where I am made to sit on another sitting platform, and tied up.

The woman Bluebell comes and sits on another platform next to me, and smiles.

But this place is so strange, that her smile does not comfort me.

A man, followed by others, comes in.

And Bluebell and Gale immediately stand up.

So he must be important.

He says something to them, in the strange words they use that I do not understand, and they all look at me.

Bluebell says my name and then shakes her head.

'Why are you holding me here?' I ask.

The leader says something, obviously asking what I just said.

And then Bluebell comes over to me, and speaks to me again.

'He just wants to know who you are, and where you come from.'

I sigh. 'I have told you already. I am Jonayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelendonii.'

'And where do these Zelendonii live?'

I shrug. 'Everywhere.'

'I assure you that they do not live anywhere. No one has ever heard of them in the Capitol or the Districts.' She frowns. 'Are you from any of the Districts though?'

I shake my head.

'Then you are from outside. From out there?'

'I must be.'

She nods, and turns around and speaks in that funny language again. Then she looks back at me.

'President Paylor wants to know how you came to be in the Games arena, and how you got there?'

'Games arena?'

'Where you were picked up.'

'Oh. There. I do not know.'

She frowns. 'What do you mean by you don't know.'

'I…' sighing, I look into her blue eyes. 'I was at the summer meeting, one I had never been to before. One taking place with a group of the Zelendonii who live far away from mine, but I was bored, so I was going to go swimming, but then I climbed a cliff, and found a cave, with a strange light, that looked like water. It pulled me in and then I found myself in the game arena.'

'A cave?'

I nod.

'Okay.'

She turns around and talks once again with her strange words.

The other men nod, and they leave the cavern as does Gale.

Bluebell goes over to a table, and taps something.

A hole appears in the wall, and she takes something out and brings it to me.

'You must be hungry and thirsty,' she says as she loosens my arms. 'You should have some food.'

I nod my head and look down at the plate she has just given me. It is filled with sections, from which food steams. A brown stew and something white that looks like grain. A pink object that looks a bit like grain cake, and there is also a cup filled with white liquid.

I dip my fingers in the stew, and scald them.

Bluebell picks up some sort of tool from the plate and looks at me strangely. 'Use the spoon.'

I take it off her and look at it. It has a long handle to hold it with, and a curved bit to scoop up food. I stick it into the stew, and then carefully taste the stew.

It is wonderful.

I eat another mouthful, and some of the white grain that Bluebell calls rice.

I am so hungry. It feels almost like I have not eaten for years.

'What's going to happen to me?'

Bluebell does not answer. She asks me a question instead. 'Are your clothes made of animal skins? I have never seen leather treated like that before. It is so basic, though beautiful too.'

'I nod. 'My mother made them for me.'

'Oh, she's a dressmaker?'

'What? I do not know that word.'

'A dressmaker? Someone who makes clothes.'

'Then yes, she is a dressmaker. It is made from an auroch.'

'An auroch? What animal is that?'

'Just a wild one.' I pick up the pink cake and sniff it. It smells of berries. I bite into it.

'A wild animal? You have wild animals where you live?'

'Yes, does not everyone. They roam everywhere and it is just as well they do or we would starve.'

'You would starve? But how do you eat a wild animal? How would you catch one?' She laughs.

'We hunt.' I pick up the cup and sip the liquid. It tastes almost like mother's milk. 'Is this…?'

'It's milk. So your people hunt these wild animals?'

'Milk? Should this not be just reserved for your young? Is it yours?'

'Mine?' She frowns. 'I don't understand.'

'Is it your milk from your…'

'Oh, oh,' she blushes. 'No, no, it's not mine. The milk, it comes from a cow, from District Ten. How could you think it was from me? I've not even got a…' She looks at the floor, her face burning with embarrassment.

I shake my head. These people are strange. 'What is a cow?'

'It's an animal. A big one, it has brown short fur, sometimes speckled and eats grass. Goes moo.'

I laugh. 'You are describing an auroch.'

'No definitely a cow. I don't know this auroch, but you said they are wild, and cows are definitely not wild. They've been domesticated for thousands of…'

She tilts her head to look at me, and then shakes her head. And then looks at me again. Then she stands up and goes over to the table and taps something again. This time a hole does not appear in the wall, a face appears instead. A woman.

'It is the Mother,' I squeal, straining against the ties around me because I want to get on the ground to worship her. 'It is the Mother.'

'What? The Mother?'

And then the Mother speaks.

'During the ice age, our ancestors hunted the ancestors of the modern day cow, that have been named aurochs. They roamed around the open grasslands of Europe and our ancestors used them for food and clothing.'

Bluebell looks at me.

'The Mother,' I cry. 'The Mother. It is she?'

'The Mother? Who is the Mother?'

I stare at Bluebell. 'How can you ask who the Mother is when she is right there. She is the Mother of us all, the Creator of all things.'

'You mean God?'

'I do not know God, I only know the Mother, and she is right there.'

Bluebell shakes her head. 'That is not the Mother, that is just a computer image.'

'She is not the Mother?'

Bluebell shakes her head.

'Are you sure?'

She laughs. 'Yes, I am. Jonayla, where you come from, you say you are from the Ninth Cave, do you mean you live in a cave?'

I nod.

And you hunt aurochs?'

'Is it very cold where you live?'

'Sometimes, not in the summer, but yes, it is cold the rest of the year, when the snow and ice comes and covers all of nature in its sleep.'

'And if I was to describe an animal, that's massive, which has a long nose that it uses like a hand, and has very shaggy fur all around its body, would you know what that animal is?'

'A mammoth. I have hunted mammoths,' I proudly say. 'Well, not on my own, but with my people.'

She laughs. 'Jonayla, I think I know where you're from.'

'You do?'

She nods. 'I think you are from the ice age.'

'The ice age?'

She reaches out and touches my hand. Smiles. 'Look Jonayla, I know this is going to sound strange, but the time you live in, the time your people are from, that was a long time ago. A long long time ago.'

'How long?'

'Thousands and thousands of years ago.'

I shake my head. 'I do not understand.'

'This is the future, you have somehow come forward in time to our time.'

I blink.

'How do I explain this?' she says to herself, and then looks back at me. 'A person can expect to live so many years…'

'I do not know this word years.'

'Oh, well, um, what about seasons? How many seasons are you?'

I shrug.

'Okay, how many summers?'

'Oh,' I understand what she wants to know now. 'I am twelve summers old.'

'Okay, and your people could expect to live say eighty summers.'

'No one lives for eighty summers,' I laugh.

'How long do they live?'

'Forty or fifty summers.'

'Right, yes, well say a man lives fifty summers, and then another lives another fifty summers, that's one hundred summers. Yes?'

I nod.

'So if these two men's live for fifty years each, then what about twenty men?'

'They would live for…' I look at my fingers. 'Ten hundred summers.' I grin.

She nods her head. 'Yes, ten hundred summers, or as we call it one thousand summers.'

'Okay.'

'Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'So if twenty men live all together for one thousand summers, two hundred men would live for…'

'Ten thousand.'

'Yes,' she looks shocked. 'You are very clever.'

I shake my head. 'My mother is much cleverer than me.'

'I doubt it, but that doesn't matter, so two hundred men live for ten thousand summers all together. But if eight hundred men lived all together for fifty summers, that would make…'

'Forty thousand summers.'

'Yes, and that is how long ago the ice age was. You are from forty thousand summers ago.'

I frown. And feel something pricking at the back of my mind. 'How is that possible?'

'I don't know, but you are here.'

'But how did I get here?'

She shrugs.

'The water light,' I gasp.

'What?'

'The water light, it must have brought me here. I thought I was dead when I was in it. I thought I was going to the Mother, but I was not was I? I was coming here. To the…'

'Future.'

'Yes, to the future.' I grin. 'I thought it was a strange place.'

'Well now you know why.'

'Yes, I do. My mother…' I gulp. 'My mother…'

Bluebell squeezes my hand.

'She is dead?'

Bluebell does not answer, but she does not need to. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My friends. Everyone I have ever known, they are all dead. And they died a long time ago.

'Mother,' I sob. 'Motheeerrrrrr.'


	11. Chapter 11

Fishcake

We follow the train tracks for miles, and everyone gets back to their lives. I 'ide out in the gut, scared that I will be grab again.

Now the excitement of the tracks is over, at least for now, they must be lookin' for me, and I don't want 'em to find me.

So I've only gone out when I 'ave ta. When me tummy's rumblin' so much that I 'ave to put somethin' in it.

I'm up on the top tier, in Pete's Eats when I see peple runnin' past the windows. I grab me burger and run outside.

Run to the barrier.

And see a city.

In the distance.

A static city.

And it is huge.

Full of spires, and shiny metal roofs. A clock tower in the middle, and gleaming white buildings. Grassy areas, and flower beds.

It looks really pretty.

It looks rich.

It looks just what we need.

For though it is big, we are bigger, and we can move. We have the machinery to chomp up their stone walls, to crush their gates, and gutters.

And we have the people who are hungry enough for something different, that are determined that they want a fight, that a fight will be given.

They won't know what has hit 'em.

We trundle closer, churning up the ground into mountains of mud that falls off our massive wheels.

But then something flies from one of the roofs of the buildings. A black dot.

And then another.

'Lighter than air crafts,' someone shouts. 'They have lighter than air crafts.'

'Old tech.'

'We're goin' to be fightin' people usin' old tech.'

The air crafts come closer, and I 'ear the turret of the Cathedral open up behind me, a large gun pokin' out.

That begins to fire at the air crafts.

Who fire back at us.

I run to me pipe, and just get in it and start to shimmy down it when I 'ear the first explosion, and 'ear the sounds of pain.

People dyin,' the people of Preston Traction City dyin.'

I just 'ead to me bed in the gut where I 'ope I'm gonna be okay.


	12. Chapter 12

Neiva

I am in the middle of training when it happens. Strange noises come from the East of the Capitol. First of all Haymitch tells me to ignore it and continue practising my knife throwing skills. But when the screams start, we rush to the window and peer out.

Only about a mile away is a vast, I don't know, a vast monster of what looks like a city. But it seems to be moving toward us.

The small hovercrafts are out, and are bombing this city but they are firing back, and sometimes they manage to reach the Capitol.

I can see a fire in the East block already.

'What's going on?' I ask, turning to Haymitch.

He shrugs. 'I don't know princess. But it doesn't matter anyway, you are going to go into the arena soon, and being distracted by what is happening outside isn't going to stop you from being killed once we get there.'

'But…' I look at the giant city. 'You think the games will still happen after…'

'Yes. I do. I don't know what is going on out there but I'm pretty sure that the guards will deal with it. It's not like that city is going to be able to win and take over.'

'Are you sure?'

He walks toward the target range and pulls my knives out of the target, including the one that is in the head of the life size picture.

'Practise now,' he says. 'And worry later.'

I nod, and take the knives off him, but can't help glancing back at where the city and the hovercrafts are fighting, not far away.

'We are safe here,' he says. 'This building is made of reinforced metal and stone, no little gun is going to destroy it.'

'I know,'

But I can't help thinking that if this city did manage to destroy this building, with us all evacuated out first of course, and if they managed to take over, that there would be no games to go into.

And I would live.

Sighing, I aim a knife at the heart of the practice range picture and throw.


	13. Chapter 13

Jonayla

The leader comes back into the room and starts shouting at me.

I look at Bluebell because I do not understand him.

'He wants to know if you are a spy for the city outside,' she says.

I frown. 'I do not understand…'

She says something to him and he shakes his head.

'What is he saying?' I ask.

'He thinks you are lying. He thinks you are a spy, sent by the city that is outside our Capitol. Our people are fighting them at the moment.'

'Fighting, why would people be fighting? My people try to discourage people fighting, it is not allowed. This future time, it is strange, but your elders should not allow this fighting. It is most unwise.'

'The people in the city are not from our people, they are others.'

'Oh, yes, like a cave raid. They will have come to take your food and young. If I had my spear shooter, I would help you fight.'

'Spear shooter?' she shakes her head. 'They are using guns.'

'I do not know the word guns.'

The man shouts again.

Bluebell talks to him, and after he says something, he leaves the room.

And then comes back with other men.

Who grab me.

'What is going on Bluebell?' I scream, as I am dragged across the room, the sitting platform still attached to me. I flail my free arms at them, and scratch one man's cheek.

He hits me and then ties my arms down.

Bluebell does not answer me, she just screams at the men, but I am dragged through a barrier, and down a tunnel until fresh air hits my face.

And I see, off to the East, a monster with smaller monsters flying around it. And they are shooting fire at each other.

I stare for a moment, and then the world goes black around me as unconsciousness comes to claim me.


	14. Chapter 14

Fishcake

The bombin' stopped some time ago, but now as I was about to go and 'ave a look around at the damage, somethin' started happenin' down 'ere in the gut.

The engineers are runnin' around, and groups of slaves are leavin' where they've been made to work and are bein' herded somewhere.

I carefully follow the last group, hidin' behind a pipe or stackin' box when I'm in danger of bein' seen.

I've never left the gut this way before, I've always used the pipes, not the stairs that they are all trampin' up on.

I follow 'em up to the top tier, where I see the Mayor standin' with men I've never seen before. They're even dressed differently. Instead of long ties, with pictures of fish and braces, they wear white shirts and jackets, instead of the normal baggy jeans, they wear black trousers and their shoes shine. Their hair is not styled the same as the people of Preston either, instead of curls and ribbons, it is short and spiky.

I can only assume they are not from the Traction City of Preston.

They are from the static city.

The Mayor clears his throat. 'This is President Paylor,' he says. 'He is President of the whole of Panem, which is where we are now, and of the city, named the Capitol by these fine people, we can see over there.

He smiles.

Nervously.

'We have come to a deal. In the interest of our people,' he swallows. 'It has been necessary…'

President Paylor taps his foot. 'Go on.'

The Mayor sighs. 'We were expecting a small static city, that was what we cross the sea for, but we missed it and found this city and thought that we could still get what we wanted.'

'Yes,' President Paylor says.

'We were wrong. The Capitol has technology that we thought had long since been lost. Old tech that we had no chance of overcoming. With that in view, and the safety of this city, and the lives of our people, I had to try…'

'He's given in,' a man shouts. 'He's sold us down the river.'

'No, no,' the Mayor says. 'Well, yes, but only in part. We have made a truce, but the Capitol, President Paylor wants, let's just say, he wants payment for our unprevoked attack.'

'I told you.'

'If you are member of the society of Preston, then you have very little to fear but…'

President Paylor steps forward. 'You have slaves, we need slaves, so your payment will be your slaves, to dig out mines that have become no longer accessible.'

'How will we come without our slaves?'

'The Capitol has agreed to take just half of the slaves, so there will still be enough to do all the jobs of the gut, and around the city,' the Mayor says. 'They will just have to work a bit harder than they were, just they're a lazy lot so that's no hardship. To us.' The Mayor smiles.

'So is that all?' a man shouts. 'They just want the slaves?'

'Ah, no,' the Mayor says. 'There is one more thing they want.'

'And that is?'

'They have a show on the Goggle Boxes, that has proved to be very popular. It shows an event that has happened every year for the last seventy five years but due to some changes in the Capitol's government, they have decided that they are going to have just one more game.'

'And?'

'And because of our unprevoked attack, they are demanding one young person from our city to enter the games.'

'I might be interested in doing it,' a boy says. 'I'd beat them all. What would I have to do?'

'Ah, that's the thing. It isn't a game as such. It's a bit like Municipal Darwinism really, survival of the fittest, like cities devour cities, in the games, well, children kill children, until there is one winner. The young person who enters this game, they will be going in with twenty four…'

'Twenty five,' President Paylor says. 'We have a small problem which we intend to sort out with the games.'

'A small…' The Mayor shakes his head. 'No matter, this games, the chances are that the child that goes in won't be coming out again. The games are about killing and dying.'

'Well, I'm not doing that then,' the boy says.

'None of my children are going,' a woman shouts. 'Send one of the slaves in.'

The Mayor shakes his head. 'They don't want a slave, and as they are all tattooed, even those that we took from Cleobury recently, the Capitol will know if we send a slave. They want a free child.'

'We tend to choose tributes by way of a lottery,' President Paylor says. 'If no one volunteers, then I suggest that is the way to determine who is chosen.'

'Yes, yes,' the Mayor says. 'So have we any volunteers?'

'They don't want a slave,' a girl says nearby.

She looks familiar.

'And I don't believe any of the adults will give up us children. What you need is someone who isn't a slave, but is also not one of our people.'

'Yes, quite,' the Mayor says.

'Well, I know who you can send?'

'Who?'

'The thief, the one who's been stealing wallets. Him.'

She points at me.

And now I know why she looks familiar, she's the one who accuse me of thieving.' I got me collar felt and only escaped coz we saw the train tracks.

I look for a way out, try to squeeze between two old woman, head for the nearest pipe that has a flap.

I find my way blocked by one of the Capitol men.

Who grabs me.

'There you are,' the Mayor says. 'There's your tribute. He's not a slave.'

President Paylor walks over to me, and tilts my head to look at me neck.

'He's a bit grubby, but yes, there is no tattoo. I suppose he will do.'

The Mayor claps his hands.

I try to kick President Paylor but he side steps me and laughs.

'He's a volatile one, should be good fun to watch in the games.' He looks over at the Mayor. 'Now we have finished with your payment for your attack, and as you have given us one of your own to go into the games, I would like to extend the Capitol's invitation for you to stay until the event has finished. I have been informed that you have tv screens, that you call Goggle Boxes, I am sure that our Engineers could work with yours to make them compatible with our system so your people can watch how this boy does. And if that goes well, then who knows what information we could share with each other.'

The Mayor's eyes gleam with greed.

'Yes, a time of sharing would be off benefit to both of our peoples.' He smiles and walks toward President Paylor.

They are shaking hands as I am tied up and dragged away from the square.


	15. Chapter 15

Neiva

I've met Caesar Flickerman, the host of the Hunger Games, many times at parties, but never like this. Never as a tribute about to be interviewed.

But that's what will happen tonight.

The night before I go into the games arena, probably to my death.

I watch as the other tributes are interviewed one by one. First up is Janna Clark, the bully of my school. Her frame looks massive even on the settee opposite Caesar, though she isn't fat, just big, muscular, and older than me.

'So Janna, how do you feel when you found out you were going into the last Hunger Games?' Caesar asks.

She grins, and look at the camera, and then at all us tributes.

'Well,' she says. 'How do you think I felt?'

'Scared?'

She shakes her head. 'I felt excited.'

Caesar leans closer. 'You did?'

She nods. 'Because I know that I can beat all those useless Capitol tributes.' She snorts. 'I'll beat them to a pulp and leave their dying corpses in the mud. I'll make sure their own mother doesn't recognise them. And then,' she looks at knuckles, blows on them. 'I will be the winner of the very last Hunger Games, and therefore the most famous.'

'More famous that Katniss?'

'Cat Pee Neverclean?'

Caesar chokes. 'Sorry, what did you call her?'

'Cat Pee Neverclean.'

'Okay.' He takes a breath as if he is trying to stop himself from laughing.

Which of course he is.

'Anyway,' Janna continues. 'She's good with a bow and arrow, but if I'd been in her Hunger Games, I would have snapped her spine before she lasted a day.'

The crowd start to mumble. Katniss is their hero and they don't like hearing anyone diss her.

'So I suppose,' Caesar says. 'That it is good that you weren't in her Hunger Games or the revolution wouldn't have happened.'

Janna nods. 'Don't get me wrong, I sided with the rebels all along, I just think they could have got a bit better person to represent them. She seemed weak.'

'Like you?'

'Yeah, I would have done the job. My family fought on the side of the rebels.'

'And still you are here?'

'I'm a Capitol child plus,' she smiles. 'I asked for my name to go into the lottery. In fact, I had my name put into the girls' bowl fifty times.'

One by one the other tributes are interviewed, and then it comes to my time.

'Neiva, my dear,' Caesar says. 'It pains me to see you here.' He looks at the crowd while I sit down. 'Do you know, I have known this little girl since she was a baby.' He looks at me. 'Do you know, your mother and I were in school together?'

I shake my head.

'I was a few years above her, so I doubt she knew who I was, but I knew her, how could I not? She was the prettiest girl in the school. I must admit,' he smiles. 'I had a bit of a crush on her for a while, but when your father let everyone know how interested he was in her, well no one had a chance against the son of the president did they?'

I shrug. 'I guess, I don't really remember him.'

He reaches out and takes my hand in his.

'He was a good man, it was such a shame…' He sighs. 'But we are not here to discuss the past, we are here to talk about the Hunger Games. You volunteered?'

I nod.

'Why? I mean, two years ago, when Katniss volunteered everyone understood that she did it to save her little sister, but you Neiva, you volunteered for a friend. Is she a good friend?'

I nod my head.

'She would have to be,' he glances at the audience and smiles. 'A very good friend.'

I hear giggling from the crowd.

'She is a good friend, but it was more than that. Yes, I could let her go into the games, gone home to my mother and got on with my life, but what then? The crowd wanted me in the games? How long would it have been before more would have died because I hadn't been sent in? Hadn't been punished? I knew that the only way to stop another war was to sacrifice myself. So I volunteered.'

Caesar wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. He looks at the audience. 'For once, I am lost for words,' he says, and then turns back to me.

'I had to go in.'

He nods, and takes a deep breath. 'And tomorrow you will, but tell me, what are your tactics going to be?'

'To stay alive.'

'Yes, but how are you going to do that? Do you know how to fight? How to survive in the wild? Do you know how to make sure no one finds you?'

I smile. 'You really don't think I'm going to answer that so that the other tributes know my plans do you? You will all have to wait and see what I do in the games, to find out what my tactics will be.'

'I guess we will.' He leans forward. 'Thank you Neiva. I wish you well.' He stands up.

And I stand up next to him.

'Ladies and Gentlemen,' he says, and he reaches for my hand, pulling my arm up into a victor's wave. 'May I present to you, the female tribute of District Twelve, our own Neiva Snow.'

After that, it is just Naylor Pillesh to interview, or so I thought, but after he has boasted of how fit he is and how he is going to be the winner, Caesar has a surprise for us all.

'The original Hunger Games happened as a punishment for the Districts as punishment for revolting, much like this games is punishment for the Capitol, but one District was never involved, that of District Thirteen. And with that in mind, it was decided that only twenty four Capitol children would be chosen to represent the twelve districts. But things changed. A city on wheels arrived, and after a brief fight, gave up. President Paylor demanded reimbursement for this, and so along with the mines of District Twelve being reopened by their slaves, they also gave us one of their children, a boy, to enter the games. And so we had an extra tribute. On top of that, another child was found in the game arena, who was dressed very strangely, and telling a story that is beyond belief, but more about her later. It was decided that she too would enter the games, and so there were two extra tributes, so it was decided that they would represent District Thirteen. So put your hands together for the tribute for District Thirteen.'

A boy is carried onto the stage, a gag around his face, and his legs tied and arms tied together. He is thrust onto the settee, and the guard stands over him.

Caesar frowns. 'Is there any need for this?' he says.

'He's tried to run away twice, and attacked another guard. It's safer for you and the audience if he is like this.'

'Oh, at least take his gag off, how are we supposed to talk?'

The guard rips the gag off the boy's face.

'Thank you,' Caesar says and then turns to the boy.

'Hello?'

The boy looks toward him.

'What is your name?'

He stares at Caesar but says nothing.

'My name is Caesar. I am the host of the Hunger Games.'

The boy nods.

'You are from the city?'

'I am.'

'Are they treating you okay?'

'What, apart from tyin' me up and lockin' me in a cell? Yeah, great. They're treatin' me like I'm a king.'

The audience laugh.

'And me name's Fishcake.'

'Fishcake? That's a strange name?'

'So's Caesar.'

Caesar smiles. 'I suppose it is. So tell me about life on that big city. Are your parents there?'

'Ain't got no parents. Not that I can remember anyways. I was stolen when I was a baby.'

'Stolen? By that city?'

'Nah, I won't stolen by Preston, I was a stowaway on there, I was stolen to be one of the Lost Boys.'

'The lost boys?'

'We were thieves. We'd get into a city, live in its gut and then steal stuff until we had enough for Uncle.'

'Uncle?'

'Our leader. The one who bought us up. He were the only family I ever 'ad, well apart from the other boys.'

'And they are in this gut in the city?'

'Nah, that was long ago. I was livin' in Preston's gut on me own. I know how ta look after meself.'

'Well that is good to know, considering where you are going.'

'This games?'

'Yes. If you know how to survive, then it will be better for you. I suppose you can run fast?'

'I were the fastest runner of all the Lost Boys, so yeah, I can run.'

'And can you fight?'

'When I 'av ta.'

'So you will be able to fighting when you are in the arena?'

'Arena?'

'The games.'

'Oh, yeah, I'll fight if I 'av ta. No one's gonna take Fishcake out. I just 'ope they take thise ropes of me before they send me into the games. Won't be able to run with 'em on.'

They talk for a while longer, but then the guard takes him back to his cell and Caesar stands up.

'We have one last tribute Ladies and Gentlemen, and this one is a good one. Maybe the best. But you will have to be very quiet, because she speaks French and needs an interpreter. And I'm sure you all want to hear her strange story, and believe me, it doesn't get much stranger. May I introduce to you all, the girl tribute of District Thirteen.'


	16. Chapter 16

Jonayla

'We need to get you ready,' Bluebell says.

'Ready for what?'

'Just,' I sigh. 'They are sending you into the games.'

'The games? Do you mean that place where they found me?'

She nods.

'But that is brilliant. I might be able to find the portal that brought me here and go home.' I grin.

'Maybe,' she says. 'I hope for your sake, but for now, you have to get ready or they will not send you in.'

I stand up. 'I am ready now.'

She shakes her head. 'You should have a bath,' Bluebell tells me. 'Amongst other things. Would that be all right?'

I nod my head. 'Can you show me where the river is?'

'The river? No, you won't have a bath in the river; you will have to go to the bathroom.'

'I do not know this word, bathroom.'

'It's the place where we bath, and go to the toilet.'

'Toilet?'

'Yes, you know where…' She blushes. 'It doesn't matter. I will take you to one.'

So I follow her down one of the tunnels to a small cavern which she calls a bathroom. It has a pool in it. A pool. Inside.

And the water does not smell like water. It smells more like the grasslands on a summer day when it is covered in flowers, and the strength of the sun in the sky heats up the air, and sends their scent everywhere.

'There is steam,' I point to where it curls around the roof of the bathroom. 'The water is too hot.'

She shakes her head. 'It isn't too hot, it will be warm, but won't harm you.'

'But how…' I wonder how they got such a large amount of water warm at the same time. 'Where are the rocks?'

'Rocks?'

'Yes, which you put in a fire, and then place in the water to heat it up.'

'Oh, no dear,' she says. 'The hot water comes out of the taps.' And she walks over and twists something on the side of the bowl, and water pours out of it.

'Is it the Mother that…'

'It's just a tap Jonayla,' she says. 'Everyone in this time has taps.'

'Oh, okay.'

Bluebell shows me how to open what she calls bottles and pour liquid from them that smells once again of that summer grasslands.

And then she leaves me, telling me to dry myself on a drying cloth once I am washed. 'Once you are dry, go through that far door,' she points to another barrier than the one we came through. 'Oh and leave your dirty clothes in here. You will be given fresh ones.'

And then she leaves.

I take off my clothes and fold them and put them on a seating platform.

I am not going to put them on the ground; they are all I have left of my mother, of my people.

Then I step into the water, sit down in it. It comes up to my neck, enveloping me in heat, and that smell.

I enjoy the shiver that runs down my back.

Then I pick up a cup and slosh water over my head.

It drips down my nose.

I stand up and start to rub the soap liquid over my skin, working it between my toes, and under my armpits. And rub some into my hair too.

I cannot believe how well it foams up.

Finally I duck my head under the water, rinsing the soap from my body and hair and then get out.

Steam rises from my body as I grab the drying cloth, the soft drying cloth, and start to dry myself.

Once dry, I pick up both the drying cloth and my clothes and walk through the door.

Into a crowd of people who stare at me with shocked faces.

'Jonayla, put the towel around you.'

'Why? It is wet.'

'Yes, but…' Bluebell blushes.

'Leave her alone,' another woman says.

And she is speaking Zelendoni. Well as close to it as Bluebell has come anyway.

'You look very lean,' she says. 'There can't be an inch of fat on you.'

'That is because I grew up riding Grey, my horse, and hunting.'

She nods. 'Your legs are quite hairy, as are your arms. We will have to wax them.' She steps closer to me and stares at my face. 'And though your eyebrows are fair, they need plucking.'

'Plucking?' I am not sure I like the idea of that. It is what we do to birds before we roast them.

'Yes plucking. But we will start with the wax.' She points to a platform. 'If you could lie on the bed, then we will begin.'

'Ruby, let her put something on,' Bluebell says. 'Even if it is just a pair of knickers. She's only a young girl.'

'Yes, yes,' Ruby waves her hand. 'Get her some knickers to put on.'

I watch as Bluebell picks up something small from another platform and brings them over to me. They look a bit like the cloths we wrap around over lower body in the summer when it is very hot. Especially the men.

'Give me the towel and your clothes, and I will help you get them on,' Bluebell says. She smiles. 'I know they probably look strange to you.'

I nod.

She takes the things in my arms and passes them to another woman, who starts to leave the room.

'Where is she taking them?'

'The towel will be washed, and your clothes, we thought it would be best to burn them.'

'Burn them,' I rush over to the woman about to leave the cavern. 'No, you cannot burn them. My mother made them.'

'But they might have germs,' Bluebell says.

'What are germs?'

'They are…' She does not answer me.

'They have no germs.' I grab the clothes off the other woman, and hug them to my chest.

'Okay Jonayla, we will not burn them, but I think it is best that they are cleaned.'

'I do not know,' I say, I do not think I trust them with them.

'They smell, they have to be cleaned, but we will get them done properly as befits what they are made of, and how delicate and special they are. Is that okay?'

'And you will not decide to burn them after all?'

She shakes her head. 'I promise you that they will not be burned, only cleaned. Now will you put these knickers on so we can get sorted.'

'Okay.' I pass the clothes to the other woman. 'Make sure they are not damaged,' I tell her.

She nods, and hurries from the room as if I frighten her.

I turn around and Bluebell holds the knickers low to the ground with two leg holes for me to step into.

I pull them up.

'Okay,' Ruby says. 'Now that is done, can we get her on the bed to be waxed?'

For the next few hours, they rip out my hair, and rub lotion into my skin until I smell a bit like that flowered grasslands.

And then they put clothes on me.

That itches.

Another pair of those knickers things, and something called a bra designed to push up the minimal amount of breasts I have. Then they put me in clothes a bit like the ones I was wearing but they are thinner, and brightly coloured like a ginger striped cat.

A man does something he calls backcombing to my hair, piling it all on top of my head, and sticks a big bone in it.

And they paint my face.

I see what they do in their clear looking glass.

They put something black under my eyes, and black streaks across my cheeks. And they put something that looks like blood on my lips.

Finally they give me a tool, they call it a knife, but it does not look like any I have ever seen. It is shiny, and long, and a bit floppy.

They say it is made of plastic.

'It won't let you hurt anyone,' Ruby says.

'Why would I want to hurt anyone?' I ask.

They do not answer me, but I can see in their eyes that they think I am a savage.

Only Bluebell looks at me kindly.

Then they lead me through a corridor, my bare feet cold on the ground, until we come to a place that I can sense is filled with people.

I am made to stand and listen to a man talking to others, somewhere near, and then it is my turn.

So here I walk, toward the man. And I know that my own mother would not recognise me.

They cheer when they see me, a great crowd, bigger than any that used to come to the summer meetings.

Bluebell leads me to a soft seating platform. There is a grinning man with pink hair opposite it.

'Why has he got pink hair?' I ask Bluebell as we sit down.

The man laughs. 'Well hello to you too little savage,' he says in the language of my people. Can you tell me your name?'

I stare at him.

The man says something to the group of people who laugh. Then he looks back at me. 'They want to know your name.'

'My name is Jonayla.'

Bluebell repeats what I have said in their language.

'Hello Jonayla, my name is Caesar Flickerman. Can you tell me where you are from?

'The Zelendoni.'

'The Zelendoni? I hear you are a long way from home.'

Bluebell repeats his words too.

I nod. 'A long way.'

'And how did you get here?'

I shrug.

Caesar leans forward. 'You are dressed like someone from long ago, from the stone age, or the ice age as it is properly known.'

'Yes. Though my people make clothes much more comfortable than these ones.'

'Your people? You make it sound as if your people are almost from that time.'

I nod. 'So I am told.'

'So what you are telling me is that you have somehow travelled through time to us here now, but that you were born a very long time ago?'

'Yes.'

The crowd gasps when they hear our words translated, and they lean closer.

'So you were born in the ice age?'

'I do not know this ice age, but the time I come from, the ground is often covered in thick layers of ice, and mammoths and aurochs roam the lands.'

'So how did you get here?'

'I do not know. I am told it was something called a portal.'

'And you were found in the game arena?'

I nod.

'Hmm,' he says, scratching his chin. 'It makes one wonder…'

I look at him. 'What makes you wonder?'

'Well it's very strange that somehow you have been bought to this time, and the portal left you in the arena. It is almost as if…'

'What?'

I hear people shouting something in their language out. They sound excited.

'It makes me wonder if the game makers know more about how you came to be here than they are saying, because if they did say then they would give away what you will find in the arena.'

He says something to the crowd.

'What did he say?' I ask Bluebell.

'He said he wonders if it was the game makers that created the portal, and if they did, he is wondering why they did it.'

'Oh. What does that mean?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know Jonayla, but I'm sure that soon it will all become clear.'

I frown.

'But enough of this,' Caesar says, turning back to me. 'Enough speculation for today. Tell me more about yourself Jonayla. You come from a people that hunts, are you good at it?'

I nod. 'Though my mother and father are better.'

'Ah, your mother and father, you must miss them.'

I nod my head. 'Yes, I do.'

'Well, I hope that somehow you are reunited with them. So you are a hunter, and what is your weapon?'

'I am good with a sling, and with a spear shooter. I can also throw a spear.'

'Anything else?'

'Well, it is not to do with hunting, but my mother is a healer, and she taught me all she knew.'

He leans closer. 'Does that mean you will help others if they are hurt in the arena?'

'Of course.'

'Even though they might try to kill you afterward. Surely it would be better to just not help them and let them die.'

'I could not do that. It would be murder.'

He smiles. 'It would be murder. So does that mean you will not kill anyone?'

'Of course not. I could never kill another human being. That is what animals do.'

'Thank you Jonayla, for a most illuminating interview.'

He puts his hand out to me, and gets me to stand up. Then he says something to the crowd.

The crowd claps their hands and shout my name.


	17. Chapter 17

Fishcake

They take me back ta me cell, and feed me somethin' gloopy and disgustin.' Then they tell me to get some sleep, throwin' a thin blanket at me.

When they shut the door, they shut out the light, so I lie in the dark with me blanket and think about all the things I'd like ta do to the Mayor of Preston.

And ta that girl who pointed me out.

Most of all, I want ta strangle me captives.

Who are makin' me enter this games thing that sounds deadly.

I try not to tremble as I lie there.

'I am Fishcake,' I say to meself. 'And I am not goin' ta die.'

I say this, or similar, every time I wake through the night, until they open that door again and drag me out.

And inject somethin' into me neck.

The world goes black around me.

And when I open me eyes again, I feel weird.

I feel clean. I swipe my tongue around me teeth. Even they feel clean. And I'm wearin' different clothes, black and stretchy that fit closely to my body.

I look up, and stare through a clear plastic tube, I'm in it, at my captives.

'What 'ave ya done?' I stand up, no longer tied up.

'We just gave you a bath,' a woman laughs. 'You stank.'

'You…' I glare at her. 'I've been buildin' that stink for years, how dare you…'

She shrugs.

'Let me out of here,' I say. Pushin' me hands against the plastic tube, tryin' to push it up.

'You will be out of it soon enough. Soon, the floor you are stood on will rise up through the tube and take you into the arena. But, I warn you, do not get off that floor until you hear the cannon, a gun, fire. Otherwise, you will die. There are bombs set into the ground that will explode if you get off too quickly.'

'What?'

'Just don't get off the floor until you hear the gun fire okay. Or you will die.'

I nod as I feel the floor starting to rise.

'Good luck,' she says.

And then I rise out of the ground onto the ground.

I shudder as I see the grass. But though I have lived most of me life in Traction cities, I 'ave walked on the bare ground before, so though I don't really like it, I am not afraid.

I nearly step off the floor, but then stop meself when I see the others on their own little circles of floors, standin' there waitin' for something.'

And then I remember the words of the woman.

And don't move.

But I notice the piles of bags nearby, and decide that as soon as I hear the gun fire, that I will run to get something.' Or two or three of something.'

But I will avoid the big ones that are glarin' at everyone else.

Coz they look like they'd like ta kill me.


	18. Chapter 18

Neiva

I rise out through the ground and stare out at the vast vista before me.

We are in what looks like a summer meadow. Filled with long grass that tickles my knees, and festooned with flowers, it looks wonderful.

I wonder what dangers are out there.

I can see trees, a forest, far away. It would take me at least ten minutes of running to get to them.

If I don't die first.

To both of my sides are other tributes, I see Janna two away from me, and the strange girl, who thinks she's from the Ice Age is four from me on the other side.

She nearly steps off the ground.

'Don't,' I shout, making everyone look at me. But I don't care. I am not a killer, not yet anyway. I warn her again, this time in the language I learnt in school, French.

She looks at me, and nods.

'Neiva,' Janna says. 'I'm going to get you.'

I don't look at her, though I can feel her eyes boring into me. I just stare forward.

I nearly step off the podium when I hear a bellow from some distance away, but just stop myself when I realise it is not the cannon, but something else.

I don't have time to think about what could have caused that noise though, as almost immediately there's an explosion.

I am plastered with flesh and blood.

My neighbour, the girl from District eleven, got on the podium and the bombs got her.

'One down, twenty four to go,' I hear Janna laugh.

I wipe my face with the sleeve of my jacket and stare at the bags scattered around the cornucopia.

Do I dare?

I see a pack of knives near a big black bag.

'Ladies and Gentlemen,' the lead Game Maker's voice blares out. 'Welcome to the seventy sixth and the last Hunger Games. Let the games commence.'

And the cannon sounds.

Before I can even think about it, I am running toward the bag. I hear others behind me, but I just keep running, scooping up the bag, the pack of knives and another small bag, and then head toward the trees.

An arrow whips past my ear, but I don't look around to see who fired it, I just keep running.

I am not going to be the first to die once the games have started.

The granddaughter of President Snow can't be the first to die.

I stumble a bit when the ground veers down a bit, but keep my feet, and keep on running. The grass is longer here, stooped down a bit, I can almost hide in it.

I push through the long strands, still heading for the trees.

The pack of knives in my hands, and two bags bumping against my back.

I hear the rustle of grass behind me, and pull out a knife, stuffing the rest in a pocket on my trousers. I turn, and see the strange girl.

She hurries past me.

But still glances back at me and smiles.

I continue running, ducking down when I hear someone else.

I hide within the stalks of grass as I see Naylor jogging past, blood spots scattered over his face, blood spots made not from that poor girl from District Eleven, he was too far away, but from someone else.

Who is probably lying dead back there.

Someone runs by, but he hears them, and turns.

A boy, one who was a couple of years above me at school stops and stares at him.

I smell urine so I guess he just wet himself, and yes, a dark patch appears on the crotch of his pants.

He tries to run, but Naylor is quicker.

Before I know it, the boy is lying in the grass, his dead eyes looking at me, and blood pouring from his throat which isn't attacked to his body anymore.

I nearly scream, but clamp my lips together.

I hear Naylor lumbering away.

And as silently as I can, go in a different direction, almost slowly crawling through the long grass until I'm far enough away to stand and run.

I reach the trees.


	19. Chapter 19

Jonayla

I reach the trees.

Immediately, I start to climb one, shimmy along a branch and jump to the next closest tree.

I pull the bag I picked up as I left my place off my back.

And I wonder if it was meant for me anyway, it was so close to me. Almost placed at my feet.

I did think about going for another bag too, but though I am not a coward, I am also not stupid either, so I did not.

I just ran, got away from where the bigger children were starting to kill the younger and weaker ones.

I look at the strange fastening on the bag, it almost looks like a row of teeth, but they showed me how to open these teeth yesterday, so I unzip it and look inside.

A large piece of soft cloth. Which will keep me warm at night. A thin rope, some dried meat, apples and a small package of wooden sticks with reddened ends.

I have no idea what they are.

Right at the bottom of the bag are a few black rocks.

I thought it was heavy, but as it had flint in it, then it is no surprise.

That is it. There is nothing else in the bag.

I think.

But then I notice the pocket in the side.

I put my hand out and pull out…

Amazingly.

And definitely meant for me.

I know that know.

I pull out, a sling.

I will be able to hunt with it.

I grin and wrap it around my head, like my mother taught me, and put everything back into the bag, and put it on my back.

Anything else that I need will have to come from my mind, and the knowledge my mother taught me.

But I am still too close to the others to use that yet, so I start to jump from tree to tree, getting as far away as I can.

And I know I have to get away, to be safe, because some of those children seemed really dangerous.

And some of them are. I saw one girl hit with a short spear not long after this strange games started.

And a boy with a spear through his chest, dead on the ground.

These people, these people of the future, they are more than strange. They are not even animals, because animals only kill because they have to eat.

These people of the future are like evil spirits.

Though not all of them. The girl who spoke in Zelendoni does not seem so bad.

But I probably cannot trust her.

She is as trapped her as I am, but will she hurt me to win this games?

I know some would kill me.

Like the one who took great joy in the girl who got blown up.

She is definitely someone to stay away from.

I continue to journey.

But when I see the shimmer of water, I jump down and slowly walk over to a spring, listening out for anyone or anything as I do.

I cup my hand and dip it into the water, sniff it to make sure it smells all right, and then timidly taste a little.

It tastes good.

So I drink.

I think I am far enough away.

I take out one of the black stones from my bag, and pick up a grey stone from the spring. Holding the black stone in my hand, I hit it with a grey one and it breaks apart into a sharp edge.

Once I have made my knife, I take the sling off my head, grab a handful of small stones and turn toward the trees. And sit and wait.

And then I see it. A wolverine. I put a stone in the hide cradle, and start to swing it around my head. Slowly so the sniffing animal does not realise that I am there. When another appears, I cast the first stone and put another in the cradle which I also throw. The animals flop onto the ground and are still.

Slinging them over my shoulders, I quickly gather some dry wood and grass for a fire, and go back to the spring.

I carefully cut into the ground with my knife, and then along, lifting up a squire of grass which I put to one side. I then start to dig a hole in the ground with a big piece of dry wood, and then put some stones in the bottom of it. I arrange the smaller bits of dried wood and grass over the stones, breaking some to make them fit.

I wash some more stones, and put them over the top of the wood and grass.

I then split the wolverines in half, take out their stomachs, which I put to one side, and then place them, furs still on, on top of the stones over the wood.

Using my knife, I cut one piece of dry wood until it is as smooth as I can get it, and make a notch in another.

And then pulling my sleeves over my hands to protect them, start to roll the stripped wood in my hands, with a bit of dry grass by the notch so that as soon as I get a spark from my makeshift fire drill, I can catch it and put it on the dry grass and wood in the hole.

Which is what I do.

It burns quickly, but with little smoke, and what there is quickly goes away when I carefully put the soil over my fire, making it into a smokeless ground oven which will cook the wolverines while I do other things.

I put the grass back, patting it to make sure it looks natural, and putting a stone by it to mark it.

Then I pick up the wolverine stomachs and go to the spring to wash them. Sluicing water through them until the water runs clear, and then using some of the thin rope, I tie each stomach at its bottom before filling them with water, and using more rope to tie the tops. I then tie them together so I can sling them around my neck.

With that done, and the wolverines slowly roasting, I climb back up into one of the trees for safety.

And not a moment too soon as almost immediately, I hear someone coming.

It is a boy, about my age. He is carrying a large bag and seeing my spring, goes and fills a container up with water.

'Move on,' I whisper. 'Please.'

But instead, he looks right up into my tree.

And our eyes meet.

Immediately I grab my sling and I see him take a knife out of his pocket.

We stare at each other.

'Go away,' I say.

He shakes his head. 'Ya go.'

And he is speaking Zelendoni.

There is another of these young people that I can understand.

'I hit you,' I say.

'And I'll… ' he looks at his knife. 'I'll throw this at ya. I'm not gonna leave that source of water back there.'

'It is mine.'

'No it's not. I'm havin' it.'

'But…'

He sighs.

'I'm not goin' but I won't hurt ya, unless ya try to hurt me. I don't even know what I am doin' here. I don't wanna be.'

'Me neither.'

'Well, how about we just agree ta not hurt each other.'

'I don't know, I don't think I can trust you.'

'Ya can trust old Fishcake, that's me, I won't 'urt ya.'

'We could help each other to survive.'

'I suppose.' I keep my sling in my hand and start to climb down. Then on the ground, I stand at a distance from him and watch him.


	20. Chapter 20

Fishcake

I can't stop shakin' and I feel like I'm gonna wet meself, I'm so scared. But this girl in front of me looks as frightened as I am.

I immediately knew she was speaking French when I heard it and after havin' spent time in the gut of Paris, the museum Traction city, I learned that language.

Though I was a bit surprised to 'ear someone speakin' it 'ere.

So now we look at each other. Me with me knife in me hand, and her, a rope thing that she spins around her head. It can see a stone in it.

'We could be partners,' I say to 'er. 'We could 'elp each other.'

She nods.

'Look, I will put me knife down.' I put it at me feet.

'Kick it away.'

'It might get lost in the undergrowth.'

'Kick it onto the stones.'

So I carefully kick it, aimin' for the spring.

'Ya need to put that down. Throw it on the rocks too.'

She nods, and does what I say.

I take me bag off me back, and put it between us. 'I could do with a little 'elp.'

'With what?'

'I've got a tent in there, but I don't know how ta put it up. Maybe ya could help me.'

'All right.' She steps forward, her hands held up so her palms are showin.' 'I am Jonayla,' she says.

'Me name's Fishcake,' I tell her back. I reach out and touch one of 'er 'ands. 'ello.'

'Hello.'

She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

'I might not be much help. The only tents I have ever come across are hide ones.'

'Hide? Ya mean like made of animal skin?'

She nods.

'Why would anyone make a tent out of animal skin?'

'Because that is all we had. My people,' she sighs. 'Well, you know.'

I shake me 'ead.

'You heard where I am from when I was interviewed by that man. Caesar someone.'

'No I didn't. I was locked up until today. They bought me to be interviewed last night and then took me back to me cell. I didn't 'ear anythin' ya said.'

'Oh, well, I guess I have a story to tell you.'


	21. Chapter 21

Neiva

I climb a tree, and sit on a thick branch to open my bags. The big one has a sleeping bag in it, green fabric that will work as camouflage within this forest and a padded hood. The sort designed to keep a body warm and dry no matter what the weather is like.

There is also a bottle filled with water, and a jar with some sort of lotion in it. It smells medicinal.

I dig deeper, and put out a set of hand and feet grips, which will make climbing easier.

Tied around the bag is a long rope.

'I will be able to tie myself to a tree whilst I sleep,' I say to myself. 'Just like Katniss did two years ago.

I look in the other bag. And find a compass. And a pen.

There's even a map of what I can only assume is the arena, though it doesn't really tell me anything. It shows the basic shape of the area, and the location of the cornucopia, but not anything else.

I will be able to draw places on the map, once I know where they are.

In one of its pockets I find a packet of cheese sandwiches.

But no other food.

I am just biting into one when I hear the new anthem of Panem, and see images start to flash across the sky.

Of the dead.

First they show the girl from District Eleven, the one who got off her podium too soon. She was no one's kill.

Then the District Nine girl's image appears. She bled to death after she was shot with an arrow that opened up an artery. The girl from District Five's first kill.

The face of a boy from my year flashes up next. Michael Myland. He was a couple of months younger than me and a bit of an idiot really. But he didn't deserve to die. He, the male tribute from District Eight, died when a spear from thrust through his chest. Janna's first kill.

The girl with the same name as my best friend appears next. Karis Appleby. She was a few years older than me, and a bit of a swot. They put her in District Six. Naylor's first kill.

Next Zartona Micheche face appears, she was in my year too, and had been assigned to District Seven, I remember how she trembled on the day of the reaping, and how her mother had cried. She died from a knife in the back. Janna's second kill.

The faces start to blend into each other, the boy from District Nine, killed by the male tribute from District One. The boy from District Three killed by the girl from District Two who was immediately killed by Jenna. The boy from District Ten who was killed by his own partner, the girl from District Ten. The boy from District Six who was killed by the boy from District One. And then the face of the boy who wet himself appears on the screen, the one who Naylor murdered by cutting his head off. He was from District Seven.

Was he the last one? I stare at the sky, wondering if anymore faces are about to appear, but none do and the sky darkens.

I bite into my sandwich and start to chew.

And then I hear the cannon.

And a few moments later, the face of the female tribute from District Four shows up in the sky. The face of Talia Renae Pullet, an eighteen year old who was picked for that District because she was so fit, and fast, and agile. Who had superior fighting skills.

They don't say how she died and they don't attribute her death to any tribute.

No one killed her, but still she is dead.

Fishcake

'What do you think happened to her?'

'Who?' I ask, turnin' to look at the girl from the Ice Age. Jonayla.

'The girl from Four.'

I shrug. 'She died.'

'Yes, but how? That thing, whatever it is, said who had killed each tribute, well apart from the girl that...'

'Blew up?'

'They did not say who had killed her, which means that something else did.'

'Maybe.'. I stare into the night. 'Hey, how do you know what they said? That goggle box man wasn't talkin' in French.'

'I am just good at learning languages. Always have been. Something I inherited from mother.'

'So you now understand English?'

'Not everything.'

'What about now?' I ask in English.

She nods. 'But that does not matter. What is important is what killed that kill if it was not another human.'

'She probably fell out of a tree.'

'Maybe,' she agrees. 'Or maybe there is something in this forest that is dangerous.'

'What? Apart from the other people?'

'Yeah.' She looks around at the nearly dark sky. 'I think we should sleep in the tree.'

'But what about me tent?'

'I do not know.'

I grab me bag and pull out me tent. It seems to have a hard bottom, folded over into sections so it can fit in the bag. 'I think we could set this up in a tree,' I say. 'Look, there are loops along the bottom for a rope to be attached to the bottom. If we found a couple of close thick branches, I reckon they would form a base to put it on. And then the other loops, with ropes, would pull the top up to form a sleeping area.'

Jonayla nods. 'Yes, I can see that. Have you got rope in your bag too.'

I root around the bottom of my bag and find some thin but strong rope. I show it to her.

'Okay, let's try it. And if it works and feels stable enough then we will sleep in it. I will share my blanket with you.'

'Okay, that's a plan then. And after we've done it, I have some dried meat we can eat for supper.'

'Oh, I think we can do better than dried meat,' she says. 'Let us get the tent up first and then you can help me dig up my ground oven.'

Jonayla

'So do ya live in a cave?' Fishcake asks.

'More of a shelter really,' I say as I chew the wolverine meat. 'We live on a flat section of the cliff which has a large stone over it. Why?' I use my flint knife to cut a bit of scorched fur away from the meat.

'It just doesn't seem natural.'

'Pardon?'

'I mean, living in a cave, walking on the bare earth, it just isn't natural. It's weird.'

I shake my head. 'I do not understand, how is it unnatural?'

'I don't know, it's just all that mud, and dirt, and grass.' He shudders. 'I don't like it. This place,' he glances through the flap in the tent to the dark outside. 'I don't like it at all. I'd much rather be livin' on a Traction city, only savages…'

I blink, and he blushes.

'I'm not sayin' you are a savage, it's just that, well, I guess I'm just not used to livin' on the ground. It is a bit better up 'ere, but I miss the smells of the city, petrol, and chemicals, and artificial perfume. It just doesn't seem right 'ere.'

'Oh, I see. You are used to a different sort of life.'

'Yeah.'

I nod. 'Have you never lived on the bare earth?'

'Not really. I've walked on it when I was with Fang, but apart from that, no. I don't really like it out 'ere, it seems too open.'

He shudders, and wraps his arms around his body. 'I just…' he sighs. 'I need to get over this.'

'Would you like me to tell you a story so you do not think about it so much?'

'Something that happened to you back in the ice age?'

'No, I will tell you a story that my mother would always tell me when I was scared.

'That sounds good,' he lays down and pull the blanket over him.

I join him, snuggling under its softness.

'It is about three girls who found themselves alone, and separated from their parents.'

'Sounds good,' he says.

'Once upon a time, there were three sisters who had been born at the same time. They lived with their parents and older brother in a cave and were at an age where they had just been involved their first mass hunt. Usually they stayed at home with some of the older women. Anyway, the eldest of the three, born minutes before the second, saw a straggler in the herd of animals, and started to follow it. And her sisters followed her. But no one saw them go.'

'Oops,' Fishcake mumbles next to me.

'So they follow this animal, but it gets away and then they realise that they are lost. They try to get back to their people but take a wrong turn and end up further away.'

'So what do they do?'

'Well, by then, the sky is darkening, and night is coming. They huddle together, for warmth as well as safety, hoping that someone will come to find them. But their people are looking in the wrong direction. After a time, the eldest suggests that they try to get back to their cave themselves, and though the other two agree, they cannot agree in which direction to walk.'

'Do they decide to go in different ways?'

I nod 'The eldest, Primrose decided to go one way through the grasslands whereas the second sister, Hyacinth, started walking the other way, heading toward a rocky area. The third sister though, Marigold, decided that the best place to go would be up. She climbed up into a tree.'

'Like us?'

'Yes, like us. So Primrose started to walk. The sky was dark, full of clouds that blocked out the moon and stars, so there was hardly any light for her to see where she was going. She could not even see her hand when she put it in front of her face. But still she walked, first of all tripping over tree roots with branches snagging in her hair and then once passed the trees, she felt the tickle of the long strands of grass on her hands. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she heard the sounds of the grass moving, frightened that it was not the wind moving it, but something within it. Something with teeth. But still she walked. When she stumbled as the ground fell a little she only just stopped herself from squealing. And the back of her neck itched with fear that something was following her. But when she heard a wolf, howling nearby, she knew she had made a mistake. She knew that she should have been wise like her little sister. She should have climbed a tree too.'

'Did she go back?'

I nod. 'But she made too much noise, and soon the wolves heard her and started to run after her. One jumped up at her, and scratched her arm with its sharp claws. Another one bit at her, catching the edge of her tunic and ripping it. But just when she thought she was definitely going to die, she heard her sister, her younger sister singing.'

'Perfectly happy in her tree?'

'Yes, Marigold was perfectly happy sitting in her tree. Whilst all this was happening, Hyacinth who was a very stubborn girl.'

'What about Primrose? Did she climb a tree or did the wolves get her?'

I smile. 'You will find that out soon. But I will tell you about Hyacinth first. She always thought she knew best. Had to have her own way, and would often fight others to make sure she had it. She thought the other two were stupid for not walking her way, she was sure that she would find her people, whilst the other two either sat waiting to be rescued or wandered around and got even more lost. But not her, she would find her way back, and then laugh at her sisters for being so foolish.'

'Nice girl,' Fishcake says.

I can tell he is being sarcastic.

'So anyway, she walked through the forest and was quickly passed the trees and climbing up a rocky hill. But she kept slipping, the rocks and stones slipping out below her feet, making her stumble. And like her sister, she could not see anything. So she bent over, using her hands to pull herself up. She ignored her bleeding knees and carried on climbing. Tried not to feel when she slipped once again and cut her leg. Refused to feel the blood dripping down her leg. But the hill was too steep and though there might have been a path, she could not see it because of how dark it was. After falling one more time, she sat on her bum and started to cry. She did not want to give up, she could not give up, she did not want her sisters to be right and her wrong. She had to win. But when she heard a roar nearby, a warning roar, she knew she was in trouble. Standing up, she hurried toward the line of the trees, trying not to make too much noise that would alert the animals that had found their home in a cave in the cliff. The cave lions that could kill her in an instance. But hear her they did, and one of them, a big male came lumbering after her. Once she was at the trees, he might have let her go, knowing his family was safe, but did not feel like letting this interloper get away. So as Hyacinth started to run, so did he. Screaming, she ran for her life, but he was faster, and with one giant paw, batted her so she fell over, and then jumped on top of her. She tried to get away, but he lowered his head, his mouth, toward her throat. A roar from his mate stopped him, and he looked away for a moment, and she scrambled away. And started to run again, the cave lion right behind her. Hyacinth screamed for help when she heard her sister, sat up in a tree, singing.'

I take a breath.

'Did she get to safety, or the other sister?'

'Soon. First I will tell you about Marigold. She knew that the safest place to be was up in a tree. It was a warm night, so she was not scared that she would freeze, but she was a bit frightened that she would fall asleep and then fall out of the tree. So she started to sing. She sang about flowers, and the sun. She sang about playing in the river, and making clay models. She sang both songs she knew or her own words to her own tune. And when she could not think of any more songs, or words to sing, she hummed until she remembered another song. So sat there in that tree, singing about the legs on the mammoth go up and down, that was when she heard the screams. She heard her sisters screaming. Both of them, coming from opposite directions. And she heard the howls of wolves and the roar of the cave lion. So she sang louder so they could hear her, and find their way to her.

'So do I get to know if they got to safety or were eaten now?'

'Yes.' I smile, though he cannot see my face, but I just want to prolong the moment. 'The sisters, Primrose and Hyacinth reached the tree where Marigold was sat at the same time. They both grabbed a separate branch and pulled themselves up, just getting away from the snapping jaws of the carnivores in time.'

'Did they fight?'

'Who? The sisters?'

'No, the wolves and the cave lion.'

'Oh yes, I suppose they did. But the important thing was that the sisters were safe together again. And together sang the rest of the night until the sun rose and they were rescued by their people who had heard their singing.'

'What happened next?'

'I do not know. That is where the story ends.'

'Oh, but how is that to do with fear?'

'You see, two sisters were silly, and stubborn, they thought they knew what was best and nearly paid for their stupidity with their lives, but the younger sister, Marigold, she was wise and stayed safe. And her actions, her singing, is what guided her sisters back to her, and to safety, and what ultimately led to them being found and rescued by their people.'

'So the moral of the story is that everyone should sing?'

I shake my head, because I have forgotten he cannot see me. 'No, the moral is that we have to be wise to stay safe.'

'And how does that relate to me?'

'You have to learn to be wise. You have to realise that the bare earth, as you call it, is not dangerous or unnatural, but like the tree, both in the story, and this one, nature often offers us protection and life.'

'But… the Traction cities…'

'Are what you know, but what you know is not the only way to live.'

'I guess.'

'And what is also natural is sleep. Can you do the fastening up on the tent, and then we should get some sleep.'

I close my eyes as I listen to him zip the tent up. Soon I am asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

Neiva

My eyes snap open when I hear the noise. Momentarily disorientated, I try to reach for my alarm clock but then remember that I'm not at home in my bed, I'm in a tree in the arena of the Hunger Games.

But what woke me?

I can't quite remember my dream but I think it involved a noise. A scratching sound.

I start to laugh at how stupid I am and close my eyes.

Until I hear it again and feel vibrations through the tree as if someone is trying to shake it.

Is it another tribute about to climb this tree? I take a knife out of my pocket.

No one climbs up.

I hear nearby bushes rustle nearby.

And then nothing.

I look at the sky, its turning from black to a dark blue.

A new day.

I peer down at where the noises came from but there's nothing there.

I start to untie myself and climb out of the tree, then I head to the nearby bushes to empty my bladder.

And then I look around for sething to eat.

Until I remember the girl from District Four. Maybe what had killed her was the food or water than this arena has in abundance.

Could it all be poisonous?

I daren't risk it.

But I have to eat which means going back to the cornucopia for supplies, despite the fact that Janna and Naylor are probably there.

And will try to kill me if they see me.

But in my mind, it is better to have to die quickly than wait for them to come and get me

So I will go.

Fishcake

Me bladder feels like it's burstin' when I wake up, so I move the leg that Jonayla has thrown over me in the night, and unzip the tent. Climbin' down the tree, I notice a thin layer of snow on the ground, it must have fallen in the night.

I shiver.

It's cold too.

I decide to walk some distance from the tree, not gonna do me business with a girl nearby, plus even I know that ya shouldn't pollute the area ya livin' in.

I 'ave just pulled up me flies, when I 'ear bushes nearby rustling.'

I turn around and look but the leaves don't move.

'Jonayla, is that ya?' I say, but not very loud coz I don't want anyone but Jonayla ta 'ear me.

Another bush, behind me this time, like whatever it is in the bushes is circlin' me.

'It's probably one of those rabbit things,' I mutter under me breath, tryin' ta keep meself calm.

Another bush rustles.

On me right.

And then I 'ear the sound of scratchin' comin' from a tree.

It sounds… Uncle had a pet when I was younger, a cat, and it used ta sharpen its claws on the furniture, the noise sounds like the noise the cat made.

Like a cat sharpenin' its claws.

I step backwards away from the noise, and a bush immediately shakes right in front of me.

I glance around, and see that there are no big trees behind me, they are all little, they wouldn't be able to 'old me weight. The nearest trees I could climb up into are either in front of me, where the noises are comin' from or at least two minutes away.

I step ta one side, backing away again.

A bush ta the left of me rustles.

And I see somethin' glintin' within the leaves.

What am I goin' ta do?

Scratchin' sounds come from the trees behind me, but I don't look, I just run toward the trees in front of me.

I 'ear noise behind me, but I don't look, don't glance over me shoulder, I just concentrate on the trees in front of me. Run toward them.

Somethin' crashes out of the bushes on me left, runs at me.

A cat, a massive cat, with teeth that look like daggers.

It lunges at me just as I reach a tree, but I manage ta get on a lower branch. I pull meself up and stare at the cat of nightmares.

And it stares up at me, it's tongue licking its dagger teeth.

It glares up at me, and then reaches out a paw, sharp claws stickin' out, and scratches them into the base of the tree.

I am trapped, up in this tree, and Jonayla is goin' to wake up and not know what happened ta me.

She might come lookin' for me.

And find…

The cat lays down, yawns and then after lookin' one more time at me, puts its head on its paws, and closes its eyes.

But I can tell it is just waitin' for me to climb down so it can 'ave me for its breakfast.

Jonayla

I wake to the sound of singing. I only just hear it though I reckon whoever is singing is scraching at the top of their lungs.

Fishcake I realise when I see he is gone.

I climb out of the tent and scurry along a thick branch, trying to hear him.

I hear my name.

'Jonayla. There's a big cat and he looks like he wants to eat me.'

The words are repeated over and over again.

I jump from my branch to another in the next tree, thankful that they grow closely together here. Twisting my body, I push myself past the thick trunk to another branch.

Slowly I work my way toward the singing.

'I am coming,' I call to him.

Something rustles in the bushes down below me and I stop to stare.

But I see no cat.

'Jonayla,' he shouts. 'Can these things climb trees?'

'What is it?' I shout back, jumping over the gap between branches of two trees.

'I don't know.' he screams. 'I think there's another...'

And then he is quiet.

'Fishcake,' I shout.

'Jonayla,' he screams. 'Help.'

Neiva

I've just pack up my bag and set off toward the cornucopia when I hear a scream.

For a moment, I still. Look around.

And then I hear another scream. One filled with terror and pain.

I run.

With every nerve inside me urging me to flee, to find somewhere safe and hide, I run.

Toward the screams.

Because though I know that I could get killed, I can't ignore that scream. I can't sit hidden in a tree, thinking only of myself, when someone is murdered.

I don't think I would be able to deal with the guilt that someone had died who I could have saved.

I gave to help.

As i run, I take my bag of my back and pull out the pack of knives. I fill the deep padded pockets on the thighs of my trousers with them. Slip another in my back pocket and hold the last one in my hand.

Ready to throw.

Another scream. Closer but also different.

Female.

I slow down.

Whoever is out there, I don't want them to hear me.

I start to creep through the trees, careful not to stand on any dry wood, ducking down so no one can see me coming.

I expect to find one of the other tributes killing one of the weaker ones but the girl screaming isn't weak, she's strong and knows how to use weapons.

But now she is pushed up against a tree, blood pouring down her face.

Up above her, a boy is throwing bits of branches and a girl in another tree is lobbing stones with a long strap.

Nearby, on the ground, a tribute lays still in a widening pool of red. His face looks panic sticten, as well it would because his throat has been ripped out and he is gasping for the air that will never come.

And the girl, the strong girl, is trying to fight off her attacker with a knife.

Janna.

It's Janna.

And the attacker is a monster from the most deepest and terrifying nightmare, some kind of large cat with blood soaked teeth that look like long knives.

I stare in horror.

I stare with disbelief.

My grandfather had a book that I used to like looking at when I was little. I remember flicking through the pages on the screen of his reader, looking at all the pictures of the long dead animals that used to roam the world.

Grey animals with legs that looked like tree trunks and long noses that resembled shower hoses, animals with speckled skin and long necks that ate the leaves at the top of impossible high trees, large birds with vicious looking beaks that never blew, lizards that stood on two legs, their mouth full of sharp teeth. And then there was a picture if the monster in front of me, a cat, a large cat with teeth like long curved knives. The saber toothed tiger.

The cannon booms and the scene before me comes back into focus. Janna is crouched on the ground, the saber toothed tiger savaging her arm.

But then it stops. Turns around at the sound of the cannon.

And sees me.

It growls and launches itself at me.

Its tawny fur is splattered with blood and pink saliva bubbles from its mouth.

And it runs so fast.

'Get up a tree,' someone shouts.

I haven't got time.

I've only got moments.

So I do the only thing I can. I throw my knife, aiming at its head and quickly grab the knife from my back pocket that I throw too.

The first knife cuts between its eyes but then bounces off its head. The second buries itself into the flesh of its shoulder.

They only make it angrier.

I back away as I fumble in my thigh pockets for another knife.

And then an arrow flies through the air and cuts into its flank.

It pounces and falls at my feet.

I squeal and jump back but then see that it is still

It isn't breathing.

It's dead and the arrow in its side killed it.

I glance over to where Janna leans against the tree trunk, a bow in her hand.

'Hello Princess Neiva,' she says.

'You saved me,' I say incredulously.

She grins. 'Wasn't going to let that animal take my kill,' she says. 'You're mine princess.'

And then she falls forward in a heap.


	23. Chapter 23

Fishcake

'Is it dead?' Jonayla asks, droppin' from the tree she was in and hurryin' to the girl who was attacked.

'Yes,' the new girl replies, starin' at the animal at her feet. 'I think it is anyway.' She gives it a kick and then crouches down and puts her hand on its side. She nods.

'What about him?' Jonayla points to the boy in the pool of blood.

'The cannon sounded so he must be. We should move into the forest so the hovercrafts can pick up the bodies.'

'I am not going anywhere,' Jonayla says. 'This one is alive but I do not think she should be moved. Not for a while anyway.'

'Janna is alive. Is she going to be all right?'

'I do not know.' She looks up at me. 'Fishcake, I need your help.'

I shake me 'ead. ' I ain't gonna get back on the ground. There might be another one.'

'And if there is, you will be no more safe up in that tree. Ndirk toothed tigers can climb trees.'

'That one didn't.'

'That one was old. It had lived a long life and probably was not agile enough to climb a tree. But if this forest is where they live, then there are sure to be more.' She turns to the girl. 'Do you know if they live here?'

'As much as I don't know anything about the arena. It is new every year and the tributes never know anything about it, I can say with certainty that this forest isn't home to that tiger.'

'How can you be so sure?' Jonayla asks.

'Because they are extinct and have been for thousands and thousands of years. I have no idea how that one got here but it shouldn't be here.'

Jonayla stares at the girl. 'I have never seen one before but my mother has.' She blinks. 'Is there a chance that it could have come through the same portal as me?'

'Maybe,' the girl says.

Jonayla looks up at me. 'If it did come through the portal, then it probably was the only one Anyway, you cannot sit up there all day. I need your help with treating this girl.'

Jonayla

If only I could find that portal, then I could take this girl to mother and she would heal her.

I sigh.

But I do not know where it is so cannot do that so I must heal her.

But I am my mother's daughter.

I take a deep breath and look at the girl.

Immediately, I can see that her arm is bleeding profusely. The dirk toothed tiger really mawled it and ripped some of the flesh on the lower arm to shreads.

I am surprise that she could fire that mini spear shooter.

I glance at the weapon, itching to pick it up and find out how it works but there is no time.

I have to stop the bleeding or the girl will die.

I glance up at Fishcake, still in his tree.

'For Mother's sake, will you come and help me?'. I say again.

'I have salve for healing,' the girl says routing through her bag.

I nod my thanks as she puts it next to me and then I turn to the dying girl.

I quickly check the rest of her body. She has a deep scratch on her forehead and a couple of shallow ones on her body, but it is the arm that needs the most attention at the moment.

'I bet that tiger was what killed the girl from District Four,' the girl who speaks the words of the Zelendonii says.

I nod as I take off my jacket. Putting it next to me, I pull of my top, a tight black thing and try to rip it.

It does not rip. Which it just as well, it has been on my body for a day now.

'We need a parachute,' the girl says. 'We need the Game Makers to send us some medicinal supplies.'. She looks up into the sky.

Fishcake slowly walks toward us, finally out of the tree, but e continually looks around for another tiger.

I look up at him. 'Was there anything else in your bag beside the tent?'

He shakes his head.

'We need a parachute,' the girl continues to say.

And then I see something white floating from the sky. It has a small package underneath it.

The girl jumps up and runs toward where it lands. She grabs it and grinning, plonks back beside us. 'They sent a parachute,' she says.

She opens the small package.

'A needle, stitches line, gauze, some tape and a metal bowl,' she gulps and looks at me. 'I've never sewed flesh together before. Only material.'

'But I have,' I say. I pull my flint knife out of my pocket and cut the cords of the parachute and the grab the white material and hold it against the bleeding girl's wound.

'What is her name?' I ask.

'Janna,' the girl says. 'And I am Neiva.'

I nod my head. 'I need to clean this wound,' I say and for that I need water.'

'Oh, I have some,' she pulls out a big container half filled with water.

'Have you been drinking it?'

'Yes, but there's plenty left.'

I shake my head. 'No, we need clean water, not water from a container you have been drinking from.'

'Oh, yes. I understand. I could get some fresh water in the bowl.'

'Yes, that would be good. There is a spring a short distance from here. But you do not know where it is.'. I look up at Fishcake and sigh when I see how frightened he still is.

But I have no choice.

'Fishcake, I need you to go to the spring for water.' I take the healing supplies out of the bowl and place then on my jacket. They seem to be wrapped in some sort of clear cloth. Then I pass the bowl to him.

'But?'

'You have to go Fishcake, Neiva does not know where it is and I must stay with Janna.' I press a little hard against the bleeding arm.'

He sigh. 'Okay, but don't blame me if I come back dead.'

'Take one of my knives, Neiva says. She pulls a long blade out of a pocket and hands it to him.

'And take the tiger slaying spear shooter too,' I say. 'If you know how to use it.' With one hand, the other trying to stem the bleeding on Janna's arm, I pick up the weapon and hold it out to him.

'It's a bow,' he says. 'Me and the other lost boys used to play with toy ones when we were too young for Uncle to allow us ta go on missions. There should be some arrows.'

I see something sticking out underneath Janna.

Fishcake and Neiva carefully undo what they call buckles and then lift Janna up so they can pull the arrows out.

Janna groans but when I look at her face, it is obvious she is still unconscious.

'Take the arrow that killed the tiger too,' Neiva says.

I watch as he goes over to the tiger, kicks it, jumps away as if he is expecting it to stand up and bite him and then bends down and pulls out the small spear. He wipes the blood on some grass.

'Hurry Fishcake,' I call as he disappears through the trees.

I turn to Jonayla. 'I need you to make a fire,' I say.

'A fire?' she shakes her head. 'No, that will bring the other tributes to us. We can't...'

'We need to boil the water.'

'Oh, couldn't you just use it without boiling it first?'

'No. It is not safe to use unboiled water. It would cause an infection. My mother says there are evil spirits in water that hurt the body. They have to be killed by boiling.'I

'You mean germs? I suppose you're right but it's Janna, she wouldn't help us if the situation were reversed. She wouldn't even spit on you if you were on fire.'

'Maybe not but I am not like that.'

'Could you not just use the salve?'

I shake my head. I pick up the pot and see the lid unscrews. 'I can only assume this is for putting on a wound after it has been cleaned.'

She sighs. 'Fine, I will build a fire but I have no idea how I will light it. I don't have any matches.' She stomps off.

Neiva

This is so stupid. Having a fire will just lead the other tributes right to us.

I remember watching a girl two years ago, the year Katniss volunteered in the place of her little sister, she'd built a fire to keep herself warm. She'd soon be found and killed.

So it's stupid having a fire. Especially for her. For the bully.

I snatch up dry twigs and dead leaves and go back to where Jonayla is.

'Where do you want this?'

She nods to a space near a tall tree. Its top branches are far from the ground but form a canopy that might dissipate the smoke before it tells everyone where we are.

Maybe.

I carry the twigs and leaves over to the spot Jonayla indicated and start to arrange them in the way my grandfather showed me when he took me camping.

'Still can't light this without matches,' I say when I'm finished.

'I will light it,' she says. 'You come over here and hold this cloth to Janna's wound.'

'What? Ewww,' I shake my head. 'No way, I might get her blood on me.' I shudder.

'Just get here and do it,' she says. 'Now.'

Reluctantly, I walk over and kneel next to them.

Janna looks like she could be dead to me.

I half wish that she is.

'Hold this,' Jonayla says, grabbing my hand and pressing it down on the blood filled parachute.

'This is gross.'

She ignores me and disappears through the trees, returning with some twigs. Sitting down, she uses a sharp stone to cut into them but looks up when Fishcake returns, a bowl filled with water in his hands and bags on his back.

'I got our things,' he says. 'I thought we might need them. He looks at the fire. 'Do you want me to light that, I have matches.'

Jonayla nods.

'I really don't think you should,' I say one more time. 'The other tributes.'

They ignore me.

I watch as Jonayla puts some stones on top of the fire and Fishcake lights it.

'We are so dead,' I mutter to myself.

Jonayla puts the metal bowl on top of the stones and sits back on her heels. She looks around and then goes over to a patch of violet flowers. She pulls some up by their roots and then walks back over to the fire and drops large petals into the bowl of water.

'What...' Fishcake starts to ask.

'They're called Cry Pansies, the petals when dried are antiseptic, they stop infection, but even as they are, steeped for a time, they should have the same effect.'. She stands up. 'As we have to have a fire, we might as well use it for more than heating water. I will be back in a little while.'

'Where are you going?' I ask.

She winks at me. 'You will see,' she says and then disappears through the trees, her long cord thing in her hand.

Fishcake

The petal filled water is startin' ta bubble, but I hardly look at it, instead glancing around me, lookin' for the slightest rustle of a bush that will show another of the monsters arrivin'.

Jonayla reckons that there probably isn't another one, but how does she know for sure? There could be, and I don't wanna get eaten by it.

So I've got me knife in me hand. Well, the girl's knife anyway.

I glance over at 'er. She's still holdin' the white material against the other girl's wound.

'ow is she?' I ask.

She looks up at me. 'I don't know.' She sighs. 'To be quite honest, I'm not even really sure why I am holding this parachute to her wound.'

'I thought ya were tryin' ta make it stop bleedin'.

'No, I don't mean that. It is just we are helping someone who will likely turn on us when she is well enough to. It would be safer to let her die. Especially because of the fire.'

'The fire? What's wrong with it?'

She sighs. 'The smoke from it could bring other tributes to us.'

'But, what's wrong with that? Ya are a tribute and ya seem to be all right.'

'Yes, I am a tribute, but not all of them are like me. The aim of the hunger games is to kill everyone until you are the only one left. That means if we were found, they would kill us all without blinking an eye. The more dead, the closer they are to winning.'

'But I don't want to die.'

'Neither do I,' she says. 'I'm Neiva my the way.'

'Neither what?'

'Neiva Snow.'

'Neiva Snow?' I look around. 'Neither snow or what? Ice.'

She rolls her eyes in her head.

I have no idea why.

'My name is Neiva.'

I shake me head. 'I don't understand.'

'Let me spell it out to you. My name is Neiva, I'm not asking you to choose anything, I am telling you what my name is.'

I frown, and then smile. 'Neiva, your name is Neiva?'

'Yes.'

I nod. 'Hello Neiva, my name is Fishcake.'

She blinks. 'Fishcake? You are named after part of a dinner?'

'Yeah, I'm named after fishcakes coz I used ta like eatin' them.' I glance at the now dancin' petals in the furiously dancing water. 'Do you think we should take that away from the fire before it boils all away?'

'Yes,' a voice says, and Jonayla reappears, two fat rabbits slung over her back and some thin branches in her hands. 'Take it off the heat; we need to cool it before I can use it.'

Jonayla

Whilst the rabbits are cooking on a spit over the fire, and Neiva and Fishcake take the body, that Neiva has identified as the male tribute representing District One, I sluice the blood and any hidden spirits out of Janna's wounds.

I wish my mother was here though.

Or I had my otterskin bag, filled with herbs and plants that she had painstakingly collected and prepared for me to use.

The bag I was always leaving next to my sleeping furs.

Back in my own time.

I sigh and look at the wound, it is not bleeding as much as it was, but I need to stop the bleeding. To do that I will have to use the needle that has been supplied by the people who forced me to play this game, the needle thinner but similar to the thread puller my mother invented.

But even with sewing, the blood still needs to clot, and for that I have collected some alfalfa I found when I was hunting the rabbits.

But to make a wash, I need more water.

I will ask Fishcake to go back to the spring once he and Neiva come back.

I wash my hands in a little of the cry pansy water left, and then rip open the packet holding the needle, Neiva told me before she left that it would open easily, I see it does.

Sighing, I thread some of the stitches line onto it, and start to sew the strips of flesh together.

There are four long rents, some deeper than others.

Slowly I sew, but look up when the others come back.

'Can you get me some more water Fishcake,' I ask, not even looking up at him.

'I will get it,' Neiva says. 'We found another spring not far from here. I'll just…'

Something flies through the sky, making me dunk down scared, looking up, I see it is one of their flying things, like the one that found me when I arrived in this time.

For all I know it is the same one and Gale and Bluebell are in it.

I watch as it hovers some distance from us, and see the rope come down and lift up a body. And then it flies away.'

'I'll go and get some more water now,' Neiva says after a moment.

I continue to sew.

'I'm gonna 'ave a look through their things,' Fishcake says, and I glance up to see three bags near a tree, one nearly ripped to shreds.

She threw it at the tiger,' he says, nodding at Janna. 'It wasn't very happy. The boy was carrying the other two bags.'

I nod my head, and continue sewing. I am on the second rent when I look up at him.

'Did you find anything useful?'

'He shows me a couple of wooden bowls, and some cups. 'These will come in useful. There's also some blankets, a change of clothes, some food and…' he grins. 'A slingshot.'

'A slingshot? What is that?' I start sewing the third rent on Janna's arm.

'It's a weapon, well sort of, me and the other lost boys, we use to make spit balls with water and toilet paper, and then fire tehm at people.'

I shake my head. I do not understand. 'What is toilet paper?'

'It doesn't matter, but look,' he holds up the weapon, it looks like a piece of wood, which separates at the top like branches on a tree, in between these branches is a strap similar in look to my sling, with what could be a stone cradle in the middle. Indeed, he grabs a stone and puts it into the cradle, but then pulls back the strap, and it stretches. When he lets it go, it flings the stone at a tree.

'That is amazing,' I say.

'It probably won't kill anyone, but it could kill a rabbit or two,' he nods at the fire. 'I could provide food too.'

Neiva arrives back with a rustle of leaves, which causes Fishcake to grab another stone and aim the slingshot at her.

'Don't point that thing at me,' she says, as she carefully carries the water to the fire.

'Put it to the side of the stones so it's stable but the fat from the rabbits will not drip into it,' I say as I continue sewing up the wound. 'I have some alfalfa over here, if you could put the leaves into one of the bowls Fishcake has found, then when the water has boiled, if you pour some of the hot water over, then they will steep as they cool.'

She comes and gets the alfalfa. 'How's it going with sewing up Janna's arm?' she asks.

I move my hand so she can see and she nods and then picks up the alfalfa, and gets a bowl from Fishcake, who is playing with his slingshot.

'While the water is heating up,' she says. 'I will go and get some more twigs and leaves for the fire.'

I continue sewing.

When she comes back, she takes the now bubbling water, that metal bowl seems to heat it so much quicker than using hot rocks, and pours some water into the wooden bowl.

'What do you want me to do with the rest of this water?'

'I got some lavender when I got the alfalfa, you could put some of the leaves into the rest of the water to make some tea, though we could do with some honey to sweeten it, but as we have not…'

'What about some sugar?' Fishcake says. He holds a jar in his hand. 'At least I think it is sugar, though far finer than any I have seen before, but it's sweet.'

'You've found Splenda?' Neiva asks. 'What, in one of their bags? That stuff is so expensive, they must have well off sponsors if they are carrying stuff like that.' She looks at me. 'That will sweeten your tea okay.'

I nod, if you put the leaves and the Splenda in the other wooden bowl, then Fishcake could get me some more water in the metal bowl to make some broth for Janna. Once I have finished sewing her up, and washed her wound with the cooled alfalfa liquid, and used the salve and the gauze and tape, then I will have a look around to see if there are any other plants that would be good to put in the broth, to aid her healing faster.'

'Okay,' Fishcake stands up. 'I'll be back in a minute.'

I watch as Neiva mixes the lavender leaves, Splenda and water together and then pours it into three cups. She brings one over to me.

Finishing the last stitch, I put the needle on its packet and take it off her.

And sip the hot liquid.

'This is good,' I say.

She nods.

'I thought lavender tea would be good as we are all tense and it would calm us. Help us to think clearly.'

'Yes,' she glances up at the smoke coming off the fire. 'I think we might need to be able to think clearly,' she says. 'When the other tributes come and we have to fight them.'

Neiva

Janna groans in her sleep, finally bandaged and not bleeding. We are carrying her away from where we'd had the fire and cooked our dinner.

Jonayla made sure the fire was totally out with not a spark in it. She poured water over it to make sure.

Anyway, we're looking for somewhere safe and after Jonayla climbed to the top of a tree, she said there was a cliff.

And where a cliff is, there might be a cave.

According to Jonayla.

But I'm glad we're moving because the further we get away from the fire, the better chance we have to allude the other tributes.

Jonayla and Fishcake carry Janna, whilst I walk behind them, constantly looking for anything that's not right and listening for the slightest sound.

But we've been walking for about ten minutes and there's been no sign of danger.

Yet.

'We should hurry,' Jonayla says. 'The day is drawing to an end and will be dark soon.'

The sky does look darker. Though the grey clouds rolling through it don't help.

'I think it's going to rain,' I say.

Jonayla nods. 'The wind is starting to whip up too. I think we're in for a storm.'

'More snow?'

'Maybe. We need to hurry.'

We quicken our pace and are soon through the trees and facing the cliff that Jonayla saw.

We stare at it and then Jonayla points to a dark shadow, almost hidden by a large rock. I move slightly to see if there is any way up to it and it disappears. I walk pass the others, and look up again.

'To see the cave, you have to stand exactly here. Hopefully, any other tributes wandering pass, won't be able to see it.'

'They might not realise its a cave anyway, would you if I had not told you.'

I shake my head.

'How are we gonna get up there?' Fishcake asks. 'It's not like there's a path. Not that goes near enough anyway.'

There is a path but the rock that blocks the view of rhe cave from down here, also blocks it. And looks too big to climb over.

'We have to try,' Jonayla says. 'Come on.'


End file.
